I have a great respect for the moviegoing experience. It's such a unique thing. You're not getting up and walking around the house or flipping channels during the dull parts. You're in a dark space, and the movie fills most of your field of vision. You're surrounded by sound, and the colors are deeply saturated, and faces are fifteen feet high. If it's done well, you're really going to feel some big emotions or have some big belly laughs.

Where's the great pay? Where's the travel? Where's the Winnebago, Goddamnit!

If you're doing six takes, instead of doing six variations on the same words, why not just throw out the words and make them up as you go along, if you're comfortable with it? It gives the movies a slightly rangier feeling, and more of an accidental feel, but it also makes them edgier.

Some people have a fear of rejecting all the security that comes with family, church and state. They become fundamentalists.

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.

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."

I loved writing and performing, but the idea of doing it for a living seemed so remote. But I eventually let it devolve to the point where it was the only thing I could do.