I love Dr. Evil [from Austin Powers] as a walking, talking, narcissistic manifestation of everything screwed up about human existence - his desire to take over the world, and have the world reflect his own power lust.

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

My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview - how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how to design the style and tone.

Dalton Trumbo was constantly criticizing the membership [in the Communist Party], and was opposite to being a loyalist.

I learn so much from watching films like that with commentary and then when you get to hear another filmmaker talk about their films it's a really great experience.

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.

For Bryan [Cranston ] to go back in time and become this larger-than-life and somewhat theatrical guy, who performed his ideas and rhetoric in public in a melodic and flashy way, was a bit of a risk.