A friend of mine is trying to do a documentary where he brings Jewish and Arab comedians to occupied territories in Israel. He wants to do shows as a way of finding some comedic common denominator. When he proposed the idea to one of the officials at the Jenin refuge camp, the guy just stared at him and said, "This is not a joke to us. We don't think that laughing is the answer."

It doesn't take any longer to improvise 10 takes than it takes to shoot 10 takes of the same thing. It turns out to be just as responsible from a business point of view as anything else.

Groundhog Day was pretty clean. It may have to do with some puritanical feeling that comedy is a forbidden pleasure in a certain way. They make you laugh, and laughter is somehow an inferior emotion to tragedy.

I'm not a believer in the pratfall. I don't think it's funny just to have someone fall down.

Whenever a critic mentions the salary of an actor, I'm thinking, He's not talking about the movie.

Find the most talented person in the room and if it's not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. try to be helpful.

My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules.