Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In the writing, I'm just trying to go deeper, emotionally, and learn more about myself and reveal more and find a way to connect with people in new ways.
Sometimes a story idea will come to me, and suddenly I've figured out the whole thing, and I feel like I'm collaborating with something other than myself.
You hear people say: "One day, when I'm in a good position I can make my passion project." I've seen a lot of people get into that position and not make it.
I have to go back to vinyl every once in awhile, even if my kids don't want to hear it. I'm much more likely to be listening to Wilco or the Avett Brothers.
Well, every movie is an experiment. And the only way you can grow at what you're doing is to take chances. You can't try to stick with what worked last time.
I start thinking about the next movie before it's a success, so I can never have one moment of happiness or peace. I'm instantly thinking about the next one.
I'm always talking to people. It's not that complicated. I just find somebody and say, "Do you have any ideas." If they do, we just start thinking things around.
If you work on network TV, they want to pick your casts, dictate your story and how your show works. It just becomes creativity by committee, which is never good.
I think it's fun to have people see everything at once, and then I think certain shows are very well-suited to being on every week and being spread out over months.
I'm trying to think if there was ever the Lenny Bruce-y, observational, George Carlin kind of magician: "You know what I hate is ..." I don't think that ever existed.
I think Jim [Carrey], in the best possible way, thought, "I need to do different things to establish to the audience that I'm not going to do the same thing every time."
I remember the review from Michael Wilmington in Chicago, and Gene Siskel wrote really smart reviews where I thought, "Oh, they totally get what we're attempting to do."
There are people who like short movies, and I think they should just watch our movies on DVD because they can pause, go to the bathroom, eat dinner, and come back to it.
I don't think it matters what the frequency is of me writing or directing a movie. It doesn't really matter to anybody else. I'm just trying to put good things out there.
It's so funny, all the similarities that we have [with David Copperfield] of being obsessed young people and finding a way to be around the people doing what we want to do.
A lot of bands that are great disappear a little bit faster than they used to. They don't get as much support for the long haul. You have to be pretty tough to hang in there.
It would be so irresponsible not to speak up. I don't know what I would do in my home and in my life if I didn't rant a little bit and as thoughtfully as I can with some humor.
There's no logic in how Donald Trump thinks. I don't want someone who's the president who says 3 to 5 million people voted illegally when there's zero proof. It's a crazy person.
The only thing worse than a crappy TV show which Paddy Chayevsky couldn't have conceived in his worst nightmare is two megacorps fighting over who thought of the crappy show first.
I definitely learned to embrace the quiet moments onstage from Garry Shandling - relaxing and not fighting with the crowd, not raising your voice, not ever trying to win them over.
I've come to realize that people connect more when they know you're telling them the truth or some aspect of your story, some mutated version of how you are experiencing this life.
I don't want to be ordinary. I'm willing to do the work. I'm willing to suffer the indignities of comedy because I want to be great. I don't want to just be good. I want to be great.
I don't think because a story has humor in it means it's brief. For some reason, people think anything that's 30 minutes is a comedy, comedies can be longer or shorter, so can dramas.
When Jim Carrey signed on to star in [The Cable Guy], and then they asked me to produce it, I made a very brief plea to direct - which was rejected really as quickly as anything can be.
If you're an athlete, you might work your entire life, and you win the Super Bowl once, if you're lucky. And I feel like in the arts and entertainment we win the Super Bowl all the time.
Some people make movies and think, "Well, I'll just keep asking for more money if this isn't enough." And then there are other people, like Clint Eastwood, who always come in under budget.
There are people that entertainment is something they do at the end of a long hard day at work, and they want to be entertained and have it over quickly. They're like, "Entertain me fast!"
I wrote for Roseanne. I wrote her stand-up act with her. I wrote with Tom Arnold. There was a period when I was working with them pretty steadily. But I would take brief gigs here and there.
I like human comedies - or dramedies. More than anything, I'm interested in people just dealing with everyday things that are difficult, and there is more than enough comedy and drama in that.
I had a very specific type of terrible network experience where I was told that people like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel weren't leads, so it truly drove me mad. So to be trusted is all I value.
I think my instinct creatively is to make things that are very funny and happy and silly. And in this moment where the world is very scary, I feel like my role is to make people laugh really hard.
I think a lot of studios today are run by women, and we are entering a time when a lot of women have evolved in Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade and wanted to become writers and comedians.
There's something honorable about holding out for love and not breaking up for the sake of the baby. I see people get divorced, and there is a part of me that thinks, I wonder how hard they tried?
The little details really connect for people in ways I never realized before.I think that's why some of the movies have done well, because people are relating to things that I'm willing to expose.
People like everything to work out, and anytime you don't make everything work out perfectly, you really are fighting against what most people are going to the movies for, especially in the summer.
I don't think I'm going to get so mature that I lose touch with the whatever wounded part of myself that feels the need to be funny. I'm already old enough that I realize that's not going to happen.
I bring people on to the movies to type and to help punch up and look at things. But a lot of it is, you want fun people to be around, to put you in a good mood, to try and access your creative place.
People talk about universal intelligence ... I'm reticent to believe almost anything, just because my parents weren't religious at all, but that's when I feel it. People talk about being in the "flow."
Just trying to tell the truth about, you know, the struggle of - being alive is funny, it's just inherently tragic and also hilarious - in a fun way and in a sad way. That seems to connect with people.
I like to make movies the way people made movies in the '70s, where they lived and died with these stories, and cared about them, and went to war for them, and they all said something they wanted to say.
I've come to believe that the simpler the title, the better. Whenever I try to get cute with it, it seems to be a problem but if it's just The 40-Year-Old Virgin, people seem to know what they're in for.
I started a radio show where I interviewed comics. And I interviewed Leno and Seinfeld and John Candy and Father Guido Sarducci and Garry Shandling, all when I was 16. And they kind of told me what to do.
I don't really get attached to anything. I'm pretty brutal about cutting stuff. With each successful movie, I've discovered anything that's not connected to the immediate story is going to be cut out of it.
I always felt as a kid that I was underappreciated, invisible or weird, but I've always secretly thought people would one day appreciate what is different about me. I'm always putting that message out there.
I used to watch 10 hours of television a night, my entire childhood. And I don't think it did all good things to me. I certainly still have social problems that are a result of being in my room alone too much.
I worshipped guys like Bill Maher, Jay Leno, and Jerry Seinfeld, and was doing my variation of that. But as a young person with no political point of view or life experience, it was as funny as you can imagine.
Some stories feel like they need more time or less time to tell. To not obsessively have to trim or add that final two or three minutes is very helpful, because you can just organically follow how the story feels.
You can do weird things on TV - there are happy stories, sad stories, dark stories. But with a movie, it always has to end satisfying. Unless you're the Coen brothers, and it ends with somebody getting shot in the head.
People are disappearing from movies, and normal human behaviour is disappearing from movies... You are not always fighting a creature in life. That's part of life, it's a pretty big part of life, but it's not all of life.
I think the story should always determine the visual approach. There are situations where you want things to feel alive and like life, and there are situations that should have some magic and the separation with the grain.