Maybe the actors that used to turn down William Goldman's scripts - where he wanted them to stretch and grow, and he was mad at 'em, and said, "Why won't they be a real actor?" - maybe they just knew their audience. It's too bad.

The Coens both give you direction, and then it's up to you to kind of figure out the music of what they're saying.

Tone is a very difficult thing. You can't write tone, I don't think. You can try - you certainly try. I write too, so I know I'm trying desperately to communicate to whoever's going to direct my pieces, the way I see the humor. But it's very difficult.

Milton Katselas said, "Who are you to look down your nose at Anna Magnani and Maureen Stapleton? Who do you think you are?" I was doing this kooky meditation at the time called inner-guide meditation, where you go into a cave and you have a guide, and you fly around. So I said to my inner guide, "Take me to the energy that's blocking me from accepting my casting" - because I understood it intellectually, but I didn't want to do it in my heart.

I like the line leading up to that: "I made your daughter the lead dancer, and you're not committed!" It's how people in their own little narrow worlds get so bent out of shape over the silliest things. I've seen it all my life, especially growing up in the South - the tempest in a teapot.

I knew Steve Carell because of Little Miss Sunshine, so I felt very comfortable with him. Maybe he always does it to guest stars, but I felt as though he was being particularly funny with me, and particularly stretching the boundaries of improvisation. He's such a comic genius. I hate to use that word, because everyone throws it around, but Steve Carell is channeling something.

I never have broken up in comedy, ever. There's something about me that I just don't break on camera - maybe because I'm just so cheap, and I know how expensive it is to shoot - but I broke on Sordid Lives, and I broke on The Office. Those are the only two times in my life.