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.

When Dalton Trumbo and his friends joined the Communist Party it was 1943, and Russia was our ally in World War II. This was connected to a very popular movement of artists and intellectuals at that time towards anti fascism, and an alliance with the union movement.

I was always interested in the larger picture, I was pre-law in college, and had a degree in economics. I was very interested in the big question 'how then shall we live?,' how do we organize as a civilization when we are so different, and often don't get along, yet we know at some point we have to unite for the common good? I actually really care about those issues, and I'm driven to understand how it works.

People are willing to throw our civilization under the bus to discredit the existing system, without any proposed solution to the problems that they're willing to pointing at.

John Wayne was never shy about that fervor, but because he was never overly zealous about his politics, and of course his status as a movie, he was embraced by both the right and the left.

It was a way to try and shut down what the unions were negotiating for, like better hours and pay. [Dalton] Trumbo and his friends joined the Communists mostly for these reasons.

Even modern wars are fought like revenge tales from some petty grievance.