I had improvised a lot in classes and at the Actors Studio, but I never did it in front of the camera.

In fact, [Gene Wilder] had made a hysteric seem considerably less funny in his film debut as a terrified undertaker in "Bonnie And Clyde." And neurotics soon became his stock-in-trade, whether he was playing the weird title character in "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory..."

I like - it's not that I want to be someone different from me, but I suppose it partly is that. I love creating a character in a fantastical situation, like Dr. Frankenstein, like Leo Bloom, a little caterpillar who blossoms into a butterfly. I love that.

There wasn't a funeral per se. I buried [Gilda Radner] 3 miles from her house that she had bought just shortly before we met. It was an old house, old colonial house, 1734. And there were just a few friends at the funeral, a nonsectarian cemetery. And an old friend of hers from junior high school or high school was the rabbi in town, and he performed the service.

Actors fall into this trap if they missed being loved for who they really were and not for what they could do - sing, dance, joke about - then they take that as love.

I certainly didn't have New York Jewish humor. But I was in three Mel Brooks films so people thought I was a connoisseur of New York Jewish humor.

I had improvised a lot in classes and at the Actors Studio, but I never did it in front of the camera.