This is a movie version of the play [All the Way]and when Bryan [Cranston] was on stage the bigness of the man was played to the back of the house. When we turned the cameras on that, it changed a bit with close-ups, but we got just as much power in that beautiful intimacy.

To this day, people ask me where is Austin Powers 4? I don't have that answer, it so hard to come up with a story that deserves an encore like that.

I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.

There is an energy in the USA that will have to be dealt with, will have to be acknowledged and coped with. There are people who feel that they've lost ground, lost access to government - people whose quality of life has been affected.

Sometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else.

John Wayne was just a very conservative guy, who had not served in World War II, and he was defensive about that - he almost overcompensated his anti-Communism because of that reason.

When we did the first sequel [of the Austin Powers] , it was on coattails of the first one doing so well when it was released on video, so we really didn't know what to do with the second plot.