“There was a time when I said, “I’m going to go do a television thing,” after doing all these theatrical films, and heard, “Television? Why are you going to go back to television?” It’s an interesting place.”

I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things – worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.

I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, “We’re just the mayonnaise.”

I think it’s a promising time which will show a lot of diversification that we’ve seen in the past.

When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.

Studios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you’re always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason – not even pointing fingers, it just is.

Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.

I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can’t truly define why something succeeds.

All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that’s what ultimately works the best for me.

It’s always hard to explain why an audience ultimately responds to a movie.

You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen.

First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.

I don’t know that you can do an absurdist film and just have everybody embrace it in terms of filling out cards. I just don’t think it happens. So you have to prepare an audience.

I don’t know that you can do it as a satire. I mean, the business is crazy enough as it is. It’s like doing Wag The Dog – we took a thing that was almost completely absurd on one level, and then ultimately those things came about.

You do understand that you can’t force the situation, but in terms of how you edit, you can define that to take the audience along, whether it be a storyline or a character moment that we can play out. The more experience you’ve had, the more beneficial it is, period.

The interesting thing about movies, it’s not always – y’know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.

I play around with human things, human relationships and that, and allow that kind of talk to work in that way, on that level.