“I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.”

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.

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 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.

No one really has the power, and everybody’s trying to get through the day, and everybody’s nervous and desperate.

I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.

I would give the cameras to the kids in the swimming pools and they would play with them, and then I would collect them and we would upload it. If you’re in the process, you’re there.

I think when Sarah Palin opened her mouth and started talking, the more she talked, the less appealing she became.

A lot of time mistakes are very interesting – you look for the behaviour that’s not the one you expect.

I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.

When they asked Jack Benny to do something for the Actor’s Orphanage – he shot both his parents and moved in.

Broadway has changed tremendously from the early days when the shows were referred to as musical comedies.

I’m an actor. I’ve always been an actor. I’ve always approached all my comedy as an actor. I don’t really care about jokes either. I tire of jokes.

Colloquialism is the toughest part of what we do, as foreign actors, because there are certain sayings that you guys have that absolutely don’t make any sense.

It is interesting to be here and to see that for certain actors they have to live in a way that you think of nobody living anymore except for in small towns. They have such elaborate double lives.

If you ask any actor “What single thing would make you really, really happy?” Among the top five things they’d say is not having to audition anymore.

I went to school to be an actor in Canada and realized I hated auditions once I left, which is a huge problem if you want to get a part.

Actors are just entertainers, even the serious ones. That’s all an actor is. He’s like a serious Bruce Forsyth.