“Hollywood has to appeal to the broadest audience, and when it comes to most social and economic issues, America is progressive. Because of that, the messages that are in Hollywood movies tend to be, for instance, pro-environment.”

I don’t think there’s ever been a moment in history where that, as an artistic message, has played very well, because people in their hearts know that’s terrible and a lie.

Everyone is sort of in their own little area counting lines and no one talks when film’s not rolling. There’s constantly actors coming to me back behind the monitor screaming at me, “Why did my line count drop?” It’s a nasty tense environment.

Animals talking are very rarely funny. But animals behaving as animals – always funny.

Blazing Saddles’ is one of the funniest movies ever made.

I gotta say – if I clicked on a movie interview, and the first part was all about Walt Whitman, I’d love that article.

In general, the final filter of Hollywood is for-profit. Nothing goes through unless it can make money.

Dave Herman as Michael Bolton is one of my favorite performances ever.

So you’re doing that the first two or three screenings, and then finally, you dial the movie in and it’s working, and at that point, it’s 50/50 as far as what’s funny and what’s working.

“Firewall” seems both scary and protective at the same time. And how often does that happen within one word besides “military” and “government?”

My mom then got Pell Grants, put herself through college to get a degree to get a better job. Because we were broke, I then had to go to a state school.

I think that the job of art and culture is to jump on that time and realize that it’s there and to push it just a little bit faster.

This was the definition in Webster’s up until 1987 when a corporation bought Webster’s and changed it to exclude any mention of corporations.

Hardly socialism. In fact, it was a Republican plan to begin with.

We’re always looking for the backbone, the central idea, and once you have that you know everything can circle around it.

It so happens that America, according to all the polls that are out there, is pretty progressive. So you’re not going to see messages that support Ayn Randian individualism at the cost of the whole, because most people don’t agree with that.

Hollywood is for-profit, is what Hollywood is. All the studios are owned by big, megacorporations that are the furthest thing from liberal you can possibly imagine.

With comedy, you never know until you put it in front of an audience. You shoot it and a year later you have no idea if it’s going to work. And then you get the response. It’s great when it’s good.

I can think of nothing that an audience won’t understand. The only problem is to interest them; once they are interested, they understand anything in the world.

My career is too short for there to be any turns! But I would say that not everyone is noticed and accepted in their debut films. I was accepted both by the industry and the audience.

I think the perception of audiences that love folk and country is they’re perceived to be more closed-minded than they really are.

I’ve done only things I’ve liked, and I’m happy that others have liked them, too. I hope it keeps going that way. But l would never want to do films which please just one set of audience; they should connect with everyone.

The director is simply the audience. His job is to preside over accidents.

Youngsters are the most discerning audience. They want entertainment, they want issues.

The select group of people who do make realistic cinema, who do make cinema perhaps a little more acceptable to the Western audience, is a very small percentage.