There's an absolute prejudice that good movies are dramas and comedies are more dismissable. But I couldn't disagree more.

When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.

Being politically active is "more about doing things, not just standing for some platform or being involved in some political party."

Most scripts are bad. I read a lot of them.

Normally you read a screenplay - and I read a lot of them - and the characters don't feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.

This movie [Don Jon] played at Sundance and South by Southwest and Berlin. And it just played - well...by the time it played at Toronto recently, it was already done. But getting to watch it with a thousand people is hugely informative.

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.