“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 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.

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 think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house.

The faster I make a lot of money, the faster I can have these kids I want.

I sit and talk to kids all day, because I feel like they carry the most wisdom.

People are used to music that justifies street culture but something that’s not touched on is why these kids act the way they act, live the way they live.

Adults are only kids grown up.

I want my kids to see me as Dad, for God’s sake, not a television personality.

I don”t know if I like communism, and I don”t know if I like socialism. But I know that the Breakfast for Children Program feeds my kids. And if you put your hands on that Breakfast for Children Program.

I wasn’t a comic book geek as a kid. I read some, but it was just like, ‘Oh, I have this comic book here.’ It wasn’t like I was collecting them.