Most of what's tricky about comedy is the perception of it and the audience's expectation.

David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director, but he's also a great writer.

I got the sense that Alabama is a place where people don't want handouts and don't much care for people talking out of the side of their mouth.

We're always looking for the backbone, the central idea, and once you have that you know everything can circle around it.

Hollywood is for-profit, is what Hollywood is. All the studios are owned by big, megacorporations that are the furthest thing from liberal you can possibly imagine.

There's a lot of things you can't control. But you can always be a pro.

Everyone is sort of in their own little area counting lines and no one talks when film's not rolling. There's constantly actors coming to me back behind the monitor screaming at me, "Why did my line count drop?" It's a nasty tense environment.