Good directors give short and specific instructions to their actors.
Even though it doesn't look like it, I run. On a treadmill. And I bounce around to all the songs on my iPod - the Pixies, Wagner, Richard and Linda Thompson, even books on tape. Just not self-help ones.
'SNL' is really hard to do when you're single and living alone. And then it's pretty tough when you're married, because you don't see your spouse.
You learn quickly at 'SNL' you get in trouble if you compare yourself to other people, where they're at, or what other people had done before you.
The first time I met James Franco, he was dressed like James Dean. He was James Dean, literally, filming a biopic.
I was a production assistant in the post department on 'The Surreal Life.' And it's been reported before that I was an assistant editor on 'The Surreal Life.' That is not true.
I can't do Twitter or Facebook, mostly because I feel like I'm the type of person who has to regiment the amount of time I spend doing certain things or I'll just wade in it, and then I'll never come out.
George Saunders is a complete genius.
When I met Judd Apatow, he told me I should start writing screenplays. They'd be really bad at first, but the more I did it, the better I'd get.
Voices are a good way to get in and out of things. James Carville constantly calls my wife to say I'll be home late. Mandy Patinkin and Al Pacino call to get me restaurant reservations.
I - at the table reads, I break constantly. If something is up there that I'm not expecting, I tend to - I can't help myself; I'll start laughing.
When you move to L.A. or New York, it's easy to get a little lost and forget your original goal.
I collect movies. So I have all those in binders. I don't have the DVDs out. I put them in binders.
I was always self-conscious about the fact that I didn't have as much comedy experience as other people at 'SNL,' and I kept thinking they were going to realize they'd made a mistake by hiring me.
I tried to get people at 'South Park' into 'Downton Abbey,' and it didn't work. I think they were like, 'Downton Abbey?' What?' And I kinda made a big plea in the writer's room, like, 'Guys, you should really watch it. It's good. It's addicting. My wife and I are obsessed with it.'
Before you get to 'SNL,' you have your own sensibility. And when you get to 'SNL,' it's the show's sensibility.
I got invited to the Playboy Mansion with the Lonely Island guys after their first season on 'SNL,' and I sat in the corner drinking coffee and talking to Akiva Schaffer about what aspect ratio he was going to shoot 'Hot Rod' in. Like, that's what we talk about.
Every relationship is work.
My dad was a big Frank Zappa fan, so I remember listening to a lot of Frank Zappa. Girls do not like Frank Zappa.
I think that's the thing I learned at 'Saturday Night Live' - any time I would try and strategize, I would always, always fall on my face. Things worked out when I tried to make it about what I was feeling at that moment and what I was into in that moment of my life.
