I don't let technology and mechanics hinder me from a good time. During one of a film premiere there was a party in the other room; I needed to get to it, so I got out. I escaped. Sometimes you do what you can, you'll turn on your best John Maclean and get to it.

Fortunately, working with Universal was just a real opportunity of a supportive entity, who not only financially backed and distributed the movie, but creatively collaborated with us, and gave us ideas and creative ways to make a movie that was budgetarily responsible.

We were in production on a movie called All the Real Girls, which filmed in the Fall of 2001, and we really discovered who Danny McBride was, as an actor. When I say we, I mean me and a crew and a small audience that would hit the art house. He'd never acted before, and it was a really refreshing, eye-opening experience to watch him unleash, in front of the camera, all this comedic potential that we knew he had, as a human being and as the guy doing keg-stands at the party.

The difference between this film [Your highness] and Pineapple Express was pretty much in the logistics of the technical ambition of the movie, and the size and scope of the movie. Pineapple Express was a great success, and that was something that we wanted to capitalize on, but we wanted this movie to be bigger, more adventuresome, bring a bigger audience to the movie, and challenge ourselves to do something new.

I saw how you could get away with such a free-spirited, naturalistic sensibility in a mainstream Hollywood movie, and you could apply a lot of the skills of the '70s icons that I really admire to a contemporary, commercial movie.

I always cast people with a sense of humor because people that are super serious don't understand when I ask them to eat a booger it's not necessarily about that. It's about something more. It's about inviting a little bit of absurdity into the process and humanity into the process. Making sure that no matter who we are and what sort of pedestal or glamorous lighting we're under, we're all eating boogers man.

A lot of people inspire me. I'm a huge movie buff. From studying and watching movies, over and over again, directly influential are Terrence Malik and his naturalism, Robert Altman and his exploration of improvisation, and Judd Apatow, in terms of his comedic process.