When we had ideas that earned there way in [Austin Powers], it began to get okay. The hook for me was 'Mini-Me.' We only auditioned one guy - Verne Troyer - and at the time I said, 'we have to get this guy, get him life insurance, whatever he needs' because there was no other way or actor to do it. It was amazing to me just to talk to him...he was Mini-Me.

There's people who actually have a whole science devoted to what makes a sticky meme and that idea of that question of why some ideas about how civilizations work catch on and others don't.

That's why we had Louis C.K. portray the harder line Communist, to accuse [Dalton] Trumbo of being a hypocrite.

I figure if it's turns out well the film will have its own momentum and will carry into the video release. So it's hard to really picture the DVD version when I'm in production.

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.

The DVD does make it a little easier for myself to trim things that are otherwise very difficult to let loose of - knowing that they'll make it on the DVD.

Hedda's Hopper attitude was 'once a Commie, always a Commie.'