If I jumped into the cliché, everybody will have seen it before. If I stick to my ignorance a little bit, maybe, maybe it will turn out different. Or maybe a slightly new aspect to a comic book villain.

For a while, I couldn't decide whether or not I should pursue singing in the opera or acting. And I'm glad that I chose the latter because I wasn't a very good singer.

There is quite an important director in Germany who I think in the early fifties over here, and then went back, and he said something that's absolutely true. And it's more important to repeat that today than it ever was. Not for you, but for us over there it is important. He said, 'In America they make movies like art, and sell it like commodities. We make make movies like commodities and sell them like art.'

One does not contradict the other.Straight-faced is the basis of all decent comedy.

I guess there are no real strict rules [in comedy], but I just learn to apply my philosophy about comedy which is, it's a serious business and the result needs to be funny, not the process.

Effortless [performance] and improvisation are two different things. Just because it's improvised doesn't mean it's effortless and just because it's effortless doesn't necessarily mean it's improvised.

To be fair, on a good project, no matter whether it's improvised or scripted or meticulously prepared, or all up for grabs, it's always, always beyond the safety zone. Every project becomes interesting and exciting once you move beyond that routine. You always aspire to that. It's not that this improvisational mode is the only mode that facilitates that.