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When I Was Very Young, I Started To Make Friends With Much, Much Older People. So When I Was Twenty, My Friends Were Fifty, And I Never Really Went Through Forty Because I Would Watch Them Die And I Would Feel Younger. So You Make Friends With Older People And You Will Always Feel Young No Matter What.

-Judd Apatow

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When I Was Very

Judd Apatow

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When I Was Very Young, I Started To Make Friends With Much, Much Older People. So When I Was Twenty, My Friends Were Fifty, And I Never Really Went Through Forty Because I Would Watch Them Die And I Would Feel Younger. So You Make Friends With Older People And You Will Always Feel Young No Matter What.

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I Started A Radio Show Where I Interviewed Comics. And I Interviewed Leno And Seinfeld And John Candy And Father Guido Sarducci And Garry Shandling, All When I Was 16. And They Kind Of Told Me What To Do.

Nowadays, When Kids Decide They Like An Artist, They'll Absorb Everything That Artist Has Ever Done In A Single Night.

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'the Night Of.' I Pray There Will Be More.

My First Writing Jobs Were Writing Tom Arnold Specials For Hbo, So I Love Working There.

There Are People Who Like Short Movies, And I Think They Should Just Watch Our Movies On Dvd Because They Can Pause, Go To The Bathroom, Eat Dinner, And Come Back To It.

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I Feel Like Everybody's Waiting For A Job Y'know, You Can Make A Movie On Your Phone. And So There Really Is No Reason To Worry About How To Get In With People- And You Can Do That, There's A Lot To Learn Working For People -but You Can Just Make A Movie, Where In The Old Days That Was Completely Impossible.

I Love When People Work Together Who Know Each Other Very Well. Some Of My Favourite Movies Are People Who Are Close Friends Or Families.

Working Together

I Start Thinking About The Next Movie Before It's A Success, So I Can Never Have One Moment Of Happiness Or Peace. I'm Instantly Thinking About The Next One.

I Don't Think I'm Going To Get So Mature That I Lose Touch With The Whatever Wounded Part Of Myself That Feels The Need To Be Funny. I'm Already Old Enough That I Realize That's Not Going To Happen.

I Think The World Is Changing And All That Matters Is That I'm Creating Things.

I'm Always Talking To People. It's Not That Complicated. I Just Find Somebody And Say, "do You Have Any Ideas." If They Do, We Just Start Thinking Things Around.

It's So Difficult To Shock America These Days.

Some People Are Probably Saner. They're Good Performers, And They Go About Their Day. I Just Get Obsessive About It.

I Loved Working In Stand-up, And I Always Dreamed That I Could Make A Movie About It. I Didn't Know If I Would Have The Courage To, Because If You Make A Bad Movie About Stand-up, Then Comedians Will Mock You For The Rest Of Your Life. They're Still Mad About Movies Made 25 Years Ago. But It Was Always A Dream Of Mine, And I Was Glad I Finally Came Up With An Idea That Allowed Me To Explore It In Such A Way That It's Not All About Stand-up, But Stand-up Creates A Great Backdrop For Another Type Of Story.

You Have To Write A Lot Of Scripts To Get Any Scripts That Are Worth Making.

I Test The Movies A Lot, And If The Audience Says They Love The Movie, We Know We're On The Right Track. And If They Tell Me They Hate It, I Try To Figure Out What I've Done Wrong. But Every Time Out, The Audience Wants Me To Go Deeper, They Want To Know More About The Characters, And They Don't Want These Movies To Be Shallow. So They Really Urge Me To Tell Them A Complicated Story, And Then When I Do So, They're Thrilled

You Should Look Up Some Of The Reviews. The New York Times Review Is So Over-the-top Funny. It's Hysterical. You Should Dig It Out.

I'm Trying To Think If There Was Ever The Lenny Bruce-y, Observational, George Carlin Kind Of Magician: "you Know What I Hate Is ..." I Don't Think That Ever Existed.

I Don't Think Because A Story Has Humor In It Means It's Brief. For Some Reason, People Think Anything That's 30 Minutes Is A Comedy, Comedies Can Be Longer Or Shorter, So Can Dramas.

I Think My Instinct Creatively Is To Make Things That Are Very Funny And Happy And Silly. And In This Moment Where The World Is Very Scary, I Feel Like My Role Is To Make People Laugh Really Hard.

My Dad Was A Big Fan Of Comedy. He Wanted To Be A Stand-up. He Loved Lenny [bruce]. He Also Loved Lord Buckley And Jazz And Stuff. He Was A Hipster. My Parents Were Kind Of Beatnik-y, You Know, For Salt Lake City. But My Humor, I Think, Came From Wanting To Disarm People Before They Hit Me.

Most Comedians Weren't Great Athletes; That Was The Way They Got Noticed In High School.

I Really Think More About Being Honest And Truthful About Feelings And How People Behave For The Movies That I Direct, But I Also Love Movies Like Zohan And Anchorman, Just Balls To The Wall, How Much Can You Make People Laugh In One 90 Minute Period.

Every Day I Live By Only One Rule, Be A Good Guy.

If You're An Athlete, You Might Work Your Entire Life, And You Win The Super Bowl Once, If You're Lucky. And I Feel Like In The Arts And Entertainment We Win The Super Bowl All The Time.

Everyone Is Wounded. No One Is Healthy Enough To Never Screw Up, When You're In Combat. But, I Like To Show That, And I Like To Show How People Get Back From That. You Have To Forgive Each Other. When You're In The Middle Of A Long-term Commitment, The Essence Of It Is That Everyone Is Going To Have Good Days And Bad Days, And It's About How You Continue To Rejoin Forces.

The Hard Part About Getting Much Attention Is That People Start Dissecting What You Do.

Sometimes A Story Idea Will Come To Me, And Suddenly I've Figured Out The Whole Thing, And I Feel Like I'm Collaborating With Something Other Than Myself.

I Don't Think It Matters What The Frequency Is Of Me Writing Or Directing A Movie. It Doesn't Really Matter To Anybody Else. I'm Just Trying To Put Good Things Out There.

I Always Thought That Seth [rogen] Was A Fun, Caustic, Bombastic, Sweet, Underdog-type Of Person That I Would Root For The Way You Used To Root For Bill Murray Or John Candy In "stripes." Seth Had Something That Very Few People You Encounter Have: He Had A Writer's Mind And He Had His Own Comic Point Of View.

I'm Just Trying To Be Truthful And Collaborate With People Who Have Interesting Things To Say.

If You Develop 10 Things, And You Can Get Two Or Three Made, That's A Very High Ration.

I Think It's Fun To Have People See Everything At Once, And Then I Think Certain Shows Are Very Well-suited To Being On Every Week And Being Spread Out Over Months.

I Think We All Have A Love/hate Relationship With The Media.

When The Entire Country Was Watching One Show There Was A Major Discussion Happening; Is It Possible For That To Happen In A 1 Million Channel Universe?

It's So Funny, All The Similarities That We Have [with David Copperfield] Of Being Obsessed Young People And Finding A Way To Be Around The People Doing What We Want To Do.

There's Something Honorable About Holding Out For Love And Not Breaking Up For The Sake Of The Baby. I See People Get Divorced, And There Is A Part Of Me That Thinks, I Wonder How Hard They Tried?

I Start Casting Early In The Writing Process, So I Can Tailor The Script To The Gifts Of The Actors.

You Can Do Weird Things On Tv - There Are Happy Stories, Sad Stories, Dark Stories. But With A Movie, It Always Has To End Satisfying. Unless You're The Coen Brothers, And It Ends With Somebody Getting Shot In The Head.

I'm The Guy Who Gets Uncomfortable. That's Why I Was Able To Write 'the 40-year-old Virgin' And 'knocked Up.' I Believe In Those Guys.

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I Didn't Want To Be A Director For Hire. It Really Just Took Me A Long Time To Learn How To Direct And To Feel Up To The Job.

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If The Movie's Not Communicating, It's Not Working.

I Think Watching Too Much Tv As A Kid Led Me To Being Very Uncomfortable In New Situations. To This Day, When I Drop My Kids Off At School, I Still Feel Like I'm In 9th Grade And I'm Uncomfortable And Insecure. Like Anyone Is Paying Any Attention.

I Think A Lot Of Studios Today Are Run By Women, And We Are Entering A Time When A Lot Of Women Have Evolved In Second City And Upright Citizens Brigade And Wanted To Become Writers And Comedians.

I Often Say That ... I'm Just Involved In Comedy, So I Can Be Around It.

Parents Don't Realize That When They Teach You About The Holocaust Too Early, It Ruins You For Life.

I'm Getting Older, So How People Face Grave Circumstances Is Of Interest To Me. And You Meet A Lot Of People Who Are Very Courageous, And It Doesn't Reek Of Something Funny To Write About, But I Always Think That The Higher The Stakes, The Bigger The Laughs Can Be, And The More Emotional The Scenes Can Be.

Nobody's Going To Like My Next Movie Because They Liked Trainwreck [2015]. It Has To Work On Its Own, And That Keeps It Really Scary.

It Was Always The Most Fun Thing In The World To Think Of A Joke Area And Talk About It With Someone Like Jim Carrey, And Then He Would Get On Stage Fearlessly And Tear The House Down. That's Something I Always Enjoyed. It Also Allowed Me To Not Be Terrified.

I'm Making A Movie About Relationships, And I'm Surrounded By Guys Scared Of Talking To Girls.

So Many People Are In Comedy Because Of Difficult Mothers Or Broken Homes.

No Matter How Much You Love Someone, On A Bad Day, You Could Say Something Terrible. All Of The Little Things That You Are Saving To Say, That You're Mad About But Never Express, Sometimes Come Out, All At Once. We All Have These Terrible Moments. That's Just Part Of Being Human.

I Think That Everything I Do Tends To Root For The Underdog.

I Always Felt As A Kid That I Was Underappreciated, Invisible Or Weird, But I've Always Secretly Thought People Would One Day Appreciate What Is Different About Me. I'm Always Putting That Message Out There.

I Hosted The Producer's Guild Awards, And It Went Well, And I Was Very Happy In The Moment, And It Was A Fun Night. But I Wake Up The Next Day Like Someone Who Did Crack The Night Before And Told Off The World, And I'm Ashamed Of The Whole Idea That Anyone Should Listen To Me, Or The Idea That I Need That Much Approval.

I've Made Movies On Every Part Of The Spectrum, And You Do Understand When You Go Into Certain Movies That You're Trying To Elicit A Certain Kind Of Response From The Audience, And People Get A Real Sense Of Satisfaction When They're Rooting For A Character And The Character Pulls It Off.

I Love Magazines And Film Critics, So I Eat It Up. I'm Not One Of Those People Who Says 'i Never Read Anything.' I Generally Read All Of It.

The First Comedians I Became Fascinated With Were The Marx Brothers. I Couldn't Get Enough Of Them. Later In Life, I Thought, "well, Maybe It's Because They Were So Rebellious And They Were Just Flipping The Bird To Society And All The Rules We're Supposed To Follow." They Were Saying That None Of It Is Fair.

One Of My Fears Is That I'm Suddenly Not Going To Be Funny, But Still Think I Am. That's Like My Nightmare That I Can Wake Up In A Cold Sweat From.

My Way Of Dealing With The World Has Always Been To Make Fun Of It And Observe It But Not Take Part In It.that's How I Became A Writer. But When You Have Kids, Suddenly You Have To Be Part Of Things. It Leads Almost To A Breakdown Because Your Whole Defense Mechanism Is Now Really Destructive.

It's What I Always Dreamed Of: That You Can Make Tv And Everyone Would Get Out Of Your Way And You Follow Your Vision Without Watering It Down.

I Wrote On The Grammys, And A Few Times For Garry Shandling When He Was Hosting. I Couldn't Have Enjoyed Those Gigs More, Because I Would Get To Collaborate And Try To Make People I Looked Up To Laugh, But For The Most Part, When You're As Talented As They Are, What They Really Want Is Someone Who Can Type Fast And Whose Presence Makes Them Feel In The Mood To Write And Spew And Be Creative, And I Was A Good Person To Have In The Room.

I Think People Like Lena Dunham Really Opened Up The Door To What Was Possible, And They've Inspired Young Women To Go Into Filmmaking And Writing And Directing And Acting In A Way That Maybe They Didn't Before, Because Now There Is A Path And There Are Jobs.

People Like The Comedy More When They Care About The Characters.

I Feel Like It's A Golden Age For Television.

As A Kid, I Was Obsessed With The Who. They Were The Most Important Band To Me. Songs Like "i'm One" Helped Me Get Through High School.

The Only Thing I Knew In The World As A Little Kid Was Comedy. And No Other Kids In My School Cared About It At All. There Was No One To Talk About It With. You Know, We're In A Geek Culture Now Where Comedy Is So Giant. I'm One Of The People That, You Know, Works On Funny Or Die. And There Is Just A Giant Culture Of Comedy Nerds. But Back Then, I Was Alone, And I Had A Little Confidence About It Because I Felt Like, This Is My Thing, This Is The Only Thing That Only I Know About.

With Comedy, A Lot Of People Develop Their Sense Of Humor As A Defense Mechanism.

There's No Logic In How Donald Trump Thinks. I Don't Want Someone Who's The President Who Says 3 To 5 Million People Voted Illegally When There's Zero Proof. It's A Crazy Person.

Literally, My Last Call Was With David Blaine, Congratulating Him On His Show. I Have A Camaraderie With David.

In Terms Of The Emotional Underpinning, If You've Been In Relationships, You Understand What's Happening.

All Of My Jokes Were About Not Being Able To Meet Anybody. I Didn't Have Any Insight Into Anything - Even My Own Insecurities.

It Seems Like Magic Is Something Kids Start Really Young.

I Used To Watch 10 Hours Of Television A Night, My Entire Childhood. And I Don't Think It Did All Good Things To Me. I Certainly Still Have Social Problems That Are A Result Of Being In My Room Alone Too Much.

For Me, Until I Know That The Audience Really Gets What I'm Trying To Communicate I'm Not Done.

I Remember The Time Review [on The Hit And Run]said That There Wasn't One Laugh In It. And I Had Watched The Movie 50 Times With Audiences, And It Always Played Great. There Was Certainly A Moment Where You Could Tell The Audience Was Like, "wow, This Is Really Getting Weird."

Donald Trump Runs The Country Like He Ran "the Apprentice." The Premise Of "the Apprentice" Is A Crazy Rich Guy Has His Daughter And His Son Oversee Celebrities Doing Tasks. And Then They Come Back To Him, And They Tell Him How They Did. So In Every Episode He's Like, How Did - How'd Meatloaf Do, Ivanka? And Then She Says, Meatloaf Really Did A Great Presentation. And Then He Makes Some Impulsive Decision About Who To Fire Based On Not Being There, Not Really Even Understanding Anything.

Right When I Started Getting Solid Was When I Was Offered A Lot Of Writing Work. And When The Ben Stiller Show Was Picked Up, I Realized There Was No Way For Me To Do Stand-up Three Or Four Nights A Week And Run This Television Show With Ben. So That Was The Moment When I Had To Make A Choice.

That's Very Important To Me As Well: Presentation And How People Perceive You, The Visual Of How Things Look, Your Posture. I Learned That From [bob] Fosse And Jerome Robbins, From All The Great Theater Directors And The Busby Berkeleys. You Overdeliver: Visually, Emotionally.

I Get Literally A Physical Sensation Of Low Self-esteem That Is A Result Of Not Engaging The World And Getting Comfortable That Way.

There Was Definitely A Period When I Just Felt Out Of Sync With Earth.

When I Notice That All The Beats Sound Exactly The Same, It Starts To Wear On Me.

I Still Feel Like A Nerd.

I Was Bad At Sports And Picked Last Every Day. I Couldn't Quite Figure Out What My Role Was In The Social Order, So I Decided I Was Interested In Comedy. And What Was Then Interesting Was, Nobody Else Was Interested In It At All. I Didn't Find One Friend Who Was Interested In Comedy Until I Moved To California And Met Other Comedians. And Suddenly I Knew Hundreds Of People Who Knew As Much About Sctv As I Did. But It Took Me 20 Years To Find Those People.

When I Was Very Young, I Started To Make Friends With Much, Much Older People. So When I Was Twenty, My Friends Were Fifty, And I Never Really Went Through Forty Because I Would Watch Them Die And I Would Feel Younger. So You Make Friends With Older People And You Will Always Feel Young No Matter What.

I'm Always Begging People Like James Brooks And Cameron Crowe To Come To Screenings, To See What They Make Of It, And They're Always Ridiculously Helpful. They Also Keep Me Brave Enough To Commit To What I'm Trying To Do. They Can Be Great Cheerleaders For Risk-taking.

I Did Get Good Enough To Get On Hbo's Young Comedians Special, But I Certainly Wasn't The Person Who Got Launched Off Of Hbo's Young Comedians Special. That Would Be Ray Romano That Year. I Had Some Semi-intelligent Jokes, But When People Would See Me, They Would Think, "oh, That's A Good Writer." No One Would Ever Have Said, "oh, That's A Good Performer."

Some Stories Feel Like They Need More Time Or Less Time To Tell. To Not Obsessively Have To Trim Or Add That Final Two Or Three Minutes Is Very Helpful, Because You Can Just Organically Follow How The Story Feels.

I Very Rarely Made Any Move To Direct Anything. I Didn't Have Any Faith In Myself.

I Like Working With People On Their First Movies. I Think That You Never Get That Level Of Effort Again. And I Think That Most People Only Have A Couple Of Amazing Stories From Their Lives, So You're Getting The Best Of Them.

I Used To Bug All Of The Comedians For Interviews, And When People Want To Talk To Me, Sometimes I'm Very Receptive And Sometimes I Say No. Sometimes If I Say No, I Think, "if They're Smart, They'll Figure Out How To Not Accept This No."

I Always Feel Like I'm Very Far From My Potential.

I Am Always Driven By The Terror Of Humiliation.

You Hear People Say: "one Day, When I'm In A Good Position I Can Make My Passion Project." I've Seen A Lot Of People Get Into That Position And Not Make It.

I Don't Think There's Really Observational Magic.

The Little Details Really Connect For People In Ways I Never Realized Before.i Think That's Why Some Of The Movies Have Done Well, Because People Are Relating To Things That I'm Willing To Expose.

I Hear Amy Schumer On Howard Stern, And I Think, "i Wish There Was A Movie That Starred Her, Because She's So Interesting," And Then At Some Point I Go, "i Guess I Have To Get Involved, Because It's Not Happening Right Now. Maybe I Should Help Try To Make That Happen."

I Bring People On To The Movies To Type And To Help Punch Up And Look At Things. But A Lot Of It Is, You Want Fun People To Be Around, To Put You In A Good Mood, To Try And Access Your Creative Place.

If We Really Talked About What's Wrong With You, You'd Need A 7-1/2-hour Movie And Nobody Would Know What Category To Put It In!

Every Time I Perform In Front Of People, No Matter How Well It Goes, The Next Day, I Feel Humiliated.

I Like Human Comedies - Or Dramedies. More Than Anything, I'm Interested In People Just Dealing With Everyday Things That Are Difficult, And There Is More Than Enough Comedy And Drama In That.

Any Music Star Would Be Singing About His Lost Love. A Movie Would Be About A Relatable Incident; It Wasn't An Untouchable Magic Dragon Box. It Was Something That People Could Relate To, And When I Vanished A Girl, It Would Be A Story About A Girl That Left Me, Or A Cutting Into Pieces Would Be A Date With A Magician. I Wouldn't Just Vanish A Girl In A Shower, I Would Do The Shower Scene From Psycho [1960] With A [alfred] Hitchcock Cameo.

I Still Feel Like A Weird Kid Who Is About To Take A Punch In The Face. So, I Think It's Permanent.

I Have To Go Back To Vinyl Every Once In Awhile, Even If My Kids Don't Want To Hear It. I'm Much More Likely To Be Listening To Wilco Or The Avett Brothers.

Every Joke Is An Experiment. When You Sit, Alone, And Write A Script, Or Just A Joke, You Really Have No Idea If It Will Succeed.

It Would Be So Irresponsible Not To Speak Up. I Don't Know What I Would Do In My Home And In My Life If I Didn't Rant A Little Bit And As Thoughtfully As I Can With Some Humor.

I Like To Make Movies The Way People Made Movies In The '70s, Where They Lived And Died With These Stories, And Cared About Them, And Went To War For Them, And They All Said Something They Wanted To Say.

Don't Be A Jerk. Try To Love Everyone. Give More Than You Take. And Do It Despite The Fact That You Only Really Like About Seven Out Of 500 People.

There's Nothing More Fun Than Debating And Defending Your Taste In Music.

If You Make A Bad Movie About Stand-up, Then Comedians Will Mock You For The Rest Of Your Life.

Rest Of Your Life

I Always See Other People As Predecessors And Admire Them.

If Anything Is Leaking, I Try To Plug The Hole.

I Don't Really Get Attached To Anything. I'm Pretty Brutal About Cutting Stuff. With Each Successful Movie, I've Discovered Anything That's Not Connected To The Immediate Story Is Going To Be Cut Out Of It.

People Talk About Universal Intelligence ... I'm Reticent To Believe Almost Anything, Just Because My Parents Weren't Religious At All, But That's When I Feel It. People Talk About Being In The "flow."

I Love The Lonely Island. I Wish There Was More Lonely Island Movies.

I Was Very Combative As A Creative Person At That Time [while The Ben Stiller Show]. I Didn't Understand How To Play Politics With The Studios. I Didn't Know How To Creatively Collaborate With The People Who Were Paying The Bills, And That Came Up All The Time On Every Project I Was Doing, And It Took Me A Really Long Time To Figure Out How To Collaborate In A Healthy Way.

Something Economically Changed. It Used To Be That You Needed 20 Million People To Watch A Tv Show For It To Be A Hit. Now, With Just A Few Million People Watching, You're Considered Very Successful, For A Lot Of These Streaming Services, Or Cable Channels. Now, That Allows People To Do Much More Creatively Ambitious Work, Because It's Not Lowest Common Denominator.

I Literally Cannot Remember One Joke.

I Don't Think There's That Many Great 90-minute Comedies.

Eventually, The Nerds And The Geeks Will Have Their Day.

Even Now If I See Someone Working Out, In Great Shape, Like A 40-year-old Guy With His Shirt Off Jogging I Always Think, "look At That Idiot." That's Why Everyone In My Movie Is Kind Of Goofy Because I'm A Champion Of The Goofball. What Sucks Is I Have To Work Out Now Not To Die. I Was Always Happy Not Working Out Because I Never Wanted To Be Someone Who Worked Out To Look Good, But Now I Have To Try To Not Die, Which Is Such A Drag.

Just Trying To Tell The Truth About, You Know, The Struggle Of - Being Alive Is Funny, It's Just Inherently Tragic And Also Hilarious - In A Fun Way And In A Sad Way. That Seems To Connect With People.

Penn [jillette] And Teller And I Get Along Very Well. We Can Call Each Other And Say, "i'm Working On This Classic Effect. Please, I'd Like To Do It For A While." We'll All Respect It. There Are People We Don't Get Along With, But Mostly There Is A Respect Amongst The Group.

A Lot Of Bands That Are Great Disappear A Little Bit Faster Than They Used To. They Don't Get As Much Support For The Long Haul. You Have To Be Pretty Tough To Hang In There.

I Put On A Big Show When I Write Something I Think Is Funny.

I Wrote For Roseanne. I Wrote Her Stand-up Act With Her. I Wrote With Tom Arnold. There Was A Period When I Was Working With Them Pretty Steadily. But I Would Take Brief Gigs Here And There.

The Thing That Ruined Your Life Makes You Good At Your Work. And Then You Get Rewarded At Work, So You Don't Bother To Fix It In Your Life.

And I Like The Passion That People Have When They're Trying To Prove They Can Make A Movie Or Be A Movie Star.

You Can Work On A Movie For Years, And You Won't Know Until You Show It To An Audience For The First Time If It Makes Any Sense To Them At All, If They're Touched, If They Find It Funny, So It's Endlessly Exciting, Because Failure Is Just Right There All The Time, And Your Chances Of Success Don't Rise That Much Based On The Fact That You Succeeded Last Time.

Some People Make Movies And Think, "well, I'll Just Keep Asking For More Money If This Isn't Enough." And Then There Are Other People, Like Clint Eastwood, Who Always Come In Under Budget.

People Are Disappearing From Movies, And Normal Human Behaviour Is Disappearing From Movies... You Are Not Always Fighting A Creature In Life. That's Part Of Life, It's A Pretty Big Part Of Life, But It's Not All Of Life.

Back In The Old Days, Everyone Was Shocked If A Band Had A Sponsor For Their Tour. Now, Bob Dylan Can Do A Commercial For Victoria's Secret And People Don't Really Blink; The Beatles' Songs Are In All Sorts Of Commercials These Days And It Doesn't Seem To Offend Anybody. The Times Are Changing.

Times Are Changing

There Are People That Entertainment Is Something They Do At The End Of A Long Hard Day At Work, And They Want To Be Entertained And Have It Over Quickly. They're Like, "entertain Me Fast!"

Humor Is His Defense Mechanism, So That Would Allow Me To Talk About Some Serious Subjects, But Get A Lot Of Hilarious Jokes In.

When People Lose Their Jobs, They Can Either Get Another Job Or Be Entrepreneurs. In The Music Industry, A Lot Of People Have Attempted The Latter By Starting Their Own Labels, But In The Age Of Digital Downloads, It's Very Difficult To Succeed.

A Lot Of Times, It's Easy To Trim The Movie 'cause You Just Start Losing Things That You Thought Would Be There Just For Amusement's Sake That Actually Are Not Funny. My Favorite Part Of The Process Is Seeing It With An Audience. I Do About Eight Previews To See How Things Are Working.

I've Always Appreciated People Like Graham Parker Or Loudon Wainwright Iii, Who Spend Their Entire Lives Writing Songs And Working Their Asses Off Just To Have Complete Artistic Freedom. They're Just Sharing Their Lives With You Through Their Music. That's The Same Kind Of Work That I'm Trying To Do, In My Own Weird Way.

I Like When People Are Very Passionate About What They Want To Write About. Even If It's Silly, You Can Be Very Passionate About It.

I've Come To Believe That The Simpler The Title, The Better. Whenever I Try To Get Cute With It, It Seems To Be A Problem But If It's Just The 40-year-old Virgin, People Seem To Know What They're In For.

We Are At This Weird Moment Where There's An Economic Model That Supports Creativity. People Are Demanding Something New And Fresh.

Economic Models

When Jim Carrey Signed On To Star In [the Cable Guy], And Then They Asked Me To Produce It, I Made A Very Brief Plea To Direct - Which Was Rejected Really As Quickly As Anything Can Be.

The Audience Doesn't Care That Most Of Happened. They Just Want A Good Movie.

There Are Only So Many Hilarious Actors So When They Cross-pollinate, People Assume It's Always The Same Actors And Directors.

I Worshipped Guys Like Bill Maher, Jay Leno, And Jerry Seinfeld, And Was Doing My Variation Of That. But As A Young Person With No Political Point Of View Or Life Experience, It Was As Funny As You Can Imagine.

I Feel Like Superbad And Freaks And Geeks Are Somewhat Timeless. That's Always Gratifying, When You Feel Like 30 Years In The Future, People Will Still Get It, And It Won't Seem Creaky. It Won't Come Across Like The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

It's Funny When People Debate About Music, Because They Get So Passionate About What They Enjoy.

I Used To Scream At Everybody At The Beginning Of My Career. I'd Get Really Emotional. I'd Project All My Issues About My Parents And Safety Onto The Executives, So Every Conversation Where They Gave A Note Was Life Or Death And You Don't Love Me.

I Try To Just Save A Fresh, Clear Head For Whoever I'm Working With, So Hopefully It's Helpful That There's Someone Who Doesn't Have To Sit In The Editing Room For 12 Hours A Day, And Who's Blinded By The Massive Footage And Options That They Have.

The Great Thing About Eminem Is, He's Just Hysterical. You Forget, People Like Eminem Because He Is Riotously Funny. And He's A Great Actor.

I Have To Make Good Things So Good Comedians Want To Talk To Me.

I Think A Lot Of Hollywood Is In Retreat Right Now Trying To Figure Out How To Make Money And Make The Safest Bets.

You Want The Audience To Get Your Movie, And You Want The Audience To Like It. It's As Simple As That. If They Don't Understand What You're Trying To Say, You've Failed. Of Course, You Can't Get 100 Percent Of The Crowd To Understand The Movie, But You Know When You've Reached The People You Want To Reach.

If A Woman Says, I Love Myself; I Love My Body; I'm Comfortable With My Life, Comfortable With My Mistakes, And I Deserve A Seat At Every Table And Everything Should Be Completely Equal, There Are Guys Who Lose Their Minds.

I Have A Four-and-a-half-year-old And, When She Was Two And A Half, She Would Make My Wife And I Do Voices, Like Woody And Jessie The Cowgirl, Or Elmo, Or Yogi Bear And Booboo. If We Didn't Do It, She Would Scream At Us. So, My Wife And I Would Have Adult Conversations As Yogi Bear And Booboo. It Was Just A Nightmare Year.

The Only Thing Worse Than A Crappy Tv Show Which Paddy Chayevsky Couldn't Have Conceived In His Worst Nightmare Is Two Megacorps Fighting Over Who Thought Of The Crappy Show First.

People Like Everything To Work Out, And Anytime You Don't Make Everything Work Out Perfectly, You Really Are Fighting Against What Most People Are Going To The Movies For, Especially In The Summer.

I Need To Find People Who I Respect So I Can Respect Them, And They'll Like Being Respected So They'll Respect Me, And That's Like A Marriage.

I Get The Most Starstruck Around Musicians. I Get Tongue-tied And Don't Know What To Say. I'm So Jealous Of Them. When You Make A Movie, You're Constructing Something - It's A Little Bit Like Making An Album. But After Musicians Make An Album, They Get To Perform It Live And Experience It In Front Of A Crowd.

I Was A Big Tv Kid.when I Was A Kid, I Would Go Home At 3:00 And Watch Tv Straight Through To The End Of Letterman At 1:30 In The Morning.i Was Obsessed With Comics.and I Would Watch Jerry Seinfeld And Jay Leno And Study Them As If It Was Tolstoy.

I Think Jim [carrey], In The Best Possible Way, Thought, "i Need To Do Different Things To Establish To The Audience That I'm Not Going To Do The Same Thing Every Time."

I Think There Have Been So Many Documentaries About Pop Stars, Made By Pop Stars. It's A New Phenomenon. People Making These Movies Where They Praise Themselves And Show Their Own Weaknesses. It's All Designed To Make You Love Them Even More.

When You Make A Movie, You Just Send It Off Into The World. You Never Actually Live It With The Crowd.

I'm Always Surprised When You Do Something Very Different That People Don't Get Behind You More, Because You're Always Told, "take Chances! Stretch!" And When You Do It, Sometimes People Get Really Supportive And Excited, But Sometimes People Go At You Because You've Tossed Out The Formula.

Watching Shows On Netflix Is A Different Experience Because Most People Are Sitting There For Three To Five Hours. Very Few People Even Watch One Episode. So It's Not Like A Movie Theater Where You Want To The Movies To Be Shorter So You Can Go Urinate. You Can Pause And Urinate At Home, And If Something Is Longer, You're Allowed To Stop And Eat Breakfast And Then Watch Eight More Episodes.

Different Experiences

I Think, There Were Probably Problems With Show Business Where Producers And Directors Would Try To Get The Writing Credit Also. So They Created A Rule Where The Bar, To Get Your Name Added To The Writing Credits, If You've Done A Revision, Is Very High If You're Also The Producer Or Director.

All My Cuts Are Always About Three Hours, At The Start, Mainly Because Any Scene In The Movie That's 90 Seconds, I Probably Shot A Five-minute Version Of. If You Just Extrapolate That Through The Whole Movie, I Have A Very Long Version Of Every Scene, Usually Because, If There's One Funny Joke, I'll Shoot Five Because I Don't Know If The One I Like Is Going To Work. I'll Get Back-ups Because My Biggest Fear Is To Be In Previews, Testing The Movie, And A Joke Doesn't Work, But I Have No Way To Fix It Because I Have No Other Line.

I've Come To Realize That People Connect More When They Know You're Telling Them The Truth Or Some Aspect Of Your Story, Some Mutated Version Of How You Are Experiencing This Life.

I Always Thought It Was Important To Overdeliver, And When I Got One Of My First Jobs, Writing Jokes For Garry Shandling When He Was Hosting The Grammys, I Stayed Up All Night And Wrote A Hundred Jokes, And I Thought, "i'm Always Going To Be The Person That Gives Them More Than They Requested, And That's Why They'll Want To Keep Me Around."

If You Watch The Arcs Of So Many Comedians, At Some Point, They Just Become Themselves.

I Love Coldplay. I Love Steely Dan - Steely Dan's Probably One Of My Top Three Bands Of All Time.

'deadwood.' I Could Have Watched That Forever.

Sometimes You Need To Get Away For A Few Weeks Just To Figure Out Who You Are Again.

Sometimes, Something Seems Dead, And Then Out Of The Blue, Someone Just Figures Out The Way To Fix A Script And It Goes.

College Is The Reward For Surviving High School. Most People Have Great Fun Stories From College And Nightmare Stories From High School.

I Was Listening To Tommy Chong Talking About How He Feels Like There Is Like A Creative Flow Happening And How Certain People Just Know How To Hook Into The Pipe. He Played Music With Jimi Hendrix And Felt That He Was Personally Connected To Some Higher Intelligence Or Creativity.

The Cable Guy Was Underbudgeted, So It Was Always A Debate About Whether We Could Have More Days Or Certain Things That We Needed, Because The Budget Was Determined Before The Script Was Written. So That Made It A Hard Production On Everybody. But It's Also A Funny Thing, Because It's One Of Those Movies That Cost $40 Million To Make And Made $100 Million Around The World, But At The Time, It Seemed Like A Disaster That It Didn't Make Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars, Because Jim Was On Such A Tear. But It Was Actually A Successful Movie.

Every Time I'm In Editing, There's Always A Moment Where You Think, "maybe This Should Be Six Or Seven Minutes Shorter, But I'm Losing Character And Story That I Think Is Important." When I Like Things, I'm Not In A Rush For Them To End.

I Used To Tour A Little Bit With Jim Carrey And Help Him Out On His First Showtime Special.

The Moment You Think Of A Joke Is The Best Moment.

A Lot Of The Turning Points Happen In High School And In College, And It Defines A Lot Of How You See The World And How You Decide To Defend Yourself From The World. Some People - Their Defense Mechanism Is, I'm Really Smart Or I'm Sexy Or I'm The Leader. And Other People - They Hide Or They Make Jokes.

I Loved The Idea That I Could Write A Joke And Someone Else Would Have To Take The Risk Of Performing It.

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