If you ever catch a great boss, it's just such a rare thing, and it's amazing.
That's the great thing about a series: you're driving to work, and you have an idea for a story for your characters, and you can go into work, and it's gonna be a television show. I mean that's what's great about the job.
I could see no position to say, 'I'm going to make a living as a writer.' But I went to classes for it; I read every play in 'Theater' magazine. I saw the second acts of everything on Broadway - I had a job as a CBS usher in New York City, and on my way home every night, I'd see what shows I could get into.
The remarkable thing about 9/11 was that journalism pretty much put down its badges. People didn't worry about reacting as human beings. People who weren't reporters reported. David Letterman was sort of a brilliant reporter for a second - but it was a way nobody had ever covered a story. They just presented what was inside themselves.
When I wrote a gay character, I spent six months asking questions I've never asked a gay friend, the questions you don't ask just because you don't have the right to do it.
When it comes to being confused about what to do about life, that's been me and will always be me.
I always fight hard to push a movie to the point where it pulls me.
In my mind, if you write a comedy where human beings experience pain, you're just being realistic.
You become so obsessed, and that's not a bad thing for a movie. Serve it with that sense that it's the whole world.
Nothing is a matter of course when you get to do your own thing. It's always a gift that can stop giving and probably will.
I laugh every day. There are days when my laughs are pretty hollow. Dust comes out of your mouth, and your bones make a funny sound. But I'm laughing.
It's craziness to see yourself as damaged goods, so I was the goofy kid who'd stop a strange adult and say, 'Do you know how to get to Palm Avenue?' They'd say no, and I'd say, 'You go two blocks and turn right. You can't miss it.'
I love it if comedy reflects real life because to me it's more reassuring that we'll get through.
I was only in college, unfortunately, for, um, a year. I think my major was public relations, and I had no idea what it meant except it seemed maybe attainable.
I'm big on research.
Things get very distorted when you do a movie, weirdly so.
Great things that can happen when you're doing a movie.
Tone is up for grabs in what we do - what's the tone of the scene.
I think you have a pact with an audience in every picture, and I think the pact is to try and be truthful and to be real.
What does it mean for an actor to make a part his own? It means that he takes on what you had intended and starts to put in his own stuff so that it becomes something that could only happen if he played it.
