I always came away thinking "I'd like to see her more," you know? And then when [Parental Guidance] was ready to be cast, we thought - Bette [Midler]. So we called her.

Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I'd always go off book and start improvising.

In high school, I was the class comedian as opposed to the class clown. The difference is the class clown is the guy who drops his pants at the football game, the class comedian is the guy who talked him into it.

Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

When comedy is good, it's jazz. The beats of it, the looseness, the improvisational part, the music-the way you hit the inflection, the high notes of a joke. It's all melody to me.

As a director and an actor, I encourage improvisation but in character and in the moment of what it is.

The inspiration was this great group of 40 or 50 relatives, sometimes for Thanksgiving or Passover or something and my brothers would just go up and make them laugh.