I read kind of serious books about fairly arcane subjects.
I myself delve into very arcane things.
My daughter recommended Chris O'Dowd to me after seeing him in 'Bridesmaids,' so I watched that and his sitcom, 'The IT Crowd.' When I was over in London, we met up, and I knew immediately he was the right person.
It's infrequent that that happens - great performances and magical cinematography and great direction.
I started on the clarinet. I was going to a music school - my mother took me - and the guy said, 'What do you want to play?' I said the drums, and my mother said, 'No, you don't. You don't want to play the drums.' So I said, 'Maybe the trumpet would be cool.' And my mother said, 'I don't think so.' And then the clarinet was handed to me.
It couldn't have been more nerdy or bizarre, playing the clarinet. But I studied classical clarinet, went to the high school for music and art in New York City, and then found the guitar and the mandolin after it.
I haven't had to do anything outside of show business my whole life. I've never been a waiter. I've only worked and gotten paid. It hasn't been a classic example of someone slogging through the business.
I wouldn't say I'm a connoisseur of film. I like certain films, but I don't pretend to be a connoisseur of films, no.
If you're deluded, you live in a place where there isn't everyone else's reality.
I talk to people of different ages, and a guy who's 38 who says, 'I could've played Major League Baseball, but I had this knee injury...' Yeah, probably not. It's a big thing with men and sports, where they think they could have touched that thing.
I'm a fly fisherman. I make flies. They're imitations of insects at different stages in their development.
The truth of it is that people are not going to want to go to improvisational theater if it's not funny. You can succeed in doing all the things you're supposed to do - be truthful to scene - and if it's not funny, I'm telling you that no one's gonna care.
Many times I'll improvise it, which isn't done a lot in movies or commercials. But a lot of my commercials are improvised.
What's interesting about Laurel and Hardy is that in most comedy teams, there's a straight man, and then there's the funny guy. And with Laurel and Hardy, they're both the funny guy.
I don't do any editing while we're making the movie. I sit down and watch it all with my editor, we make longhand notes on pads, and then we begin our work.
Ninety-nine percent of television shows, I've never seen.
All these movies are observational comedies. I see somebody, maybe a dry cleaner, and notice how they are. Maybe I'll decide to turn a person with those traits into a studio chief.
When you hear someone talking in a restaurant or overhear someone talking on the street, there are very different patterns of conversation than you would hear in a conventional movie.
I would overhear these conversations of people who show purebred dogs. They spoke about them as if they were their children.
I spent more time in America, but I developed a very English sense of humour. I clicked into it deeply with Peter Sellers, who is still probably my favourite comedian.
