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

Since I was a kid, every Thanksgiving growing up in New York, we always watched 'The March of the Wooden Soldiers' by Laurel and Hardy. Never miss it.

[I did impressions] of relatives because I heard so many different sounds. My dad was in the music business and of course my uncle was a giant [music producer], but my dad in particular had the house filled with these Dixieland jazz stars.

When I've gotten criticism, it's that it's too long, too soft, didn't hit the government hard enough. Then when I do hit the government, they go, What's he doing hitting the government?

I didn't rebel as a child. I missed that angry teenager thing.

I'm comfortable being old... being black... being Jewish.

I never stopped believing in us and I never felt like I was wanting for anything, except for my father, and that was not going to be. I describe in the book [that] I don't think I ever felt young again in that way. I never felt I had my 15, 16, 17 kind of years the way I maybe should have. It's a huge dent in you that it's hard to knock out and make it all smooth again.