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

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

When you screen it the first couple times, you're just trying to get the movie to work, trying to get the story to flow, trying to find out where your areas are where you have enough breath to laugh a little bit. So you're doing that the first two or three screenings, and then finally, you dial the movie in and it's working, and at that point, it's 50/50 as far as what's funny and what's working. Sometimes you'll put something in and it will just die so hard that it'll almost kill the movie.

For my money, I don't think there's been a better comedy than 'Kung Fu Hustle' in a lot of years. That movie just knocked me over.

There's always way less improv than people think. The truth is something like 15 percent.

There are so many shoot-'em-up, action, jingoistic TV shows and movies that are made every year. I think the final line is that Hollywood is populist.

Hollywood has to appeal to the broadest audience, and when it comes to most social and economic issues, America is progressive. Because of that, the messages that are in Hollywood movies tend to be, for instance, pro-environment.