If I'm not directing it, I need to be right in the director's ear so we can be talking about this." You do something like use the wrong music, the tone's off, and everything feels off". And I was like, "I'm not going down with this one. I wrote it, but I don't like that play." Then I thought, "Well, no one's producing my stuff, letting me star in it, and direct it at these theaters, so I'll just do them in comedy clubs."

I think a lot of people are very good, but I don't think anybody could do my rhythm. I was thinking, "If you want my rhythm" - and when I was writing, I was writing them for myself - "why am I watching another actor doing what I should be doing?" It was just a really unpleasant experience.

If I'm in a bar and I gotta be sitting next to some clown who's like, "It's my tune," I don't want to hear you belt out Bruce Springsteen. That's why we have jukeboxes! Let's let Bruce be Bruce.

I had a lot of bad jobs but the one big internship I had is I interned for 'SNL' when I was 21 years old and that was the joke. You intern there and you think man, I'm going to be with the writers and the great comedians. Then you're getting everybody sandwiches and then the doors close and then all the great creatives are doing the work.

If you have the ability to work with people smarter than you, always try to be the least smartest person in the room and surround yourself with talent, because iron sharpens iron.

I like fictional stories - like, things that never happened but the seed of it starts as real.

I'm not a guy who sees the desire to transform with each part; I'm not a piece of clay.