Comedy is more difficult. You can look at scenes when you're doing a drama like, “Maybe it works,” but in comedy, when you're doing it, either it works or it doesn't. You have to keep doing it until it does, and the requirement is more.

The stage has a certain discipline. But the ultimate standard is more exacting in film, because you have to see yourself and you are your own toughest critic.

I don't even own a cell phone.

Believe it or not, I supported Richard Nixon on the issue of presidential privilege. How could anyone conceive of being the president of the United States and think that every single thing that you say or do can become a part of the public record? It just seems so stupid to me.

I would never say, "I'm retired." I believe if I decided to just not work, in six months everybody would just forget whether you were working or not.

I know I can act. There aren't too many other jobs I know how to do. Financially, I've lost money and made money, but I know my way around financially. I've been too many places. I'm like the bad penny.

I don't want to direct a movie as good as Antonioni, or Kubrick, or Polanski, or whoever. I want it to be my own. I think I've got the seed of it and, what's more, that I can make movies that are different and informed by my taste.