“People like to define you through what they’ve seen you do. There are aspects of my personality, I guess, that come through on-screen, but I don’t sit around thinking, ‘I’ve been a bumbling suitor all my life.’”

The big-name stars . . . are always going to be playing what they’ve played before if they want to remain so-called A-list stars. That’s why someone like Johnny Depp is doing more interesting roles not caring about the size of the movie.

I wanted to be funny for people who didn’t care about fashion at all, to just to kind of exist as a silly character.

I love New York. I was sad, depressed and incredibly moved by our fellow countrymen and what they’ve done. I wanted to give people a chance to see something funny, have a distraction.

Whatever talent I had, I’m sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.

When you have kids you want to be able to go to movies and take the family too, and actually all enjoy it together. I don’t think there are that many great, live action family movies that everybody can enjoy.

Zoolander was more of my own sensibility.

The failure of The Cable Guy impacted my career. I had to start writing and acting again.

I don’t need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines !

It’s weird that people expect me to be funny. I find it a real burden when I’m expected to be humorous on talk shows.

When I was growing up, This is Spinal Tap [1984] was the ultimate comedy, and it was the kind of thing I wanted to do. But you get to a point with parody where you can’t go much further because ultimately it’s feeding off of somebody else’s creativity.

I have not been an easygoing guy. I think it’s called bipolar manic depression. I’ve got a rich history of that in my family.

Fashion is so over the top.

I was a bad student. I liked archaeology actually, I was interested in maybe becoming an archaeologist but I was such a bad student and had such bad grades that I wasn’t going to get into any really good college so I fell back on acting.

I’d love to travel more. I really look forward to traveling with my kids. I’m just waiting for them to want to travel with me.

It’s great to work with the people who make you laugh and who are funnier than I am.

I don’t think the public is dying to see me necessarily be funny all the time.