If you test Iron Man and that audience doesn't respond well, you can be damn sure that there is something wrong with the movie that you have to address. Because they're expecting a certain amount of action, right? They want a hero. There are certain things that have to be compatible with the way the audience is thinking about it. If you take some other film, like No Country for Old Men, you can end up with all kinds of crazy reactions.

Sarah Palin kept talking and talking, and the more she talks, the less compelling she can be. People say, "She's a very good politician, very deft at what she does," and whatever. And I hear that sometimes and go, "I don't know much about this stuff, but I would say no." Because the really good politician expands the audience, not contracts it. She may be getting a very vocal crowd, but it's a very specific group.

I would give the cameras to the kids in the swimming pools and they would play with them, and then I would collect them and we would upload it. If you're in the process, you're there.

I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.

Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.

A lot of people have done things over the years and made fun of people in one way or another. When I was a kid, Vaughn Meader used to do John F. Kennedy. I don't know if that makes John F. Kennedy less credible. He would do the voice, he'd have some silly situations or whatever. I don't know if it made him less presidential because of it.

First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.