I just try to be true to myself and write about things I'm passionate about. I think what most people don't like about movies is they can tell that most movies are a product, and they don't mean that much to the people who make them.

When the entire country was watching one show there was a major discussion happening; is it possible for that to happen in a 1 million channel universe?

In my work, there is a lot of storytelling. The storytelling is not a new thing. Back in the [Howard] Thurston days, the [Harry] Houdini days, the [Harry] Blackstone days, it was stories, but the stories were, "We're going to the Egyptian temples, and we're going to vanish the Prince of Thebes," and, "On my last trip to the Orient ..."

I remember the Time review [on the Hit and Run]said that there wasn't one laugh in it. And I had watched the movie 50 times with audiences, and it always played great. There was certainly a moment where you could tell the audience was like, "Wow, this is really getting weird."

I think Jim [Carrey], in the best possible way, thought, "I need to do different things to establish to the audience that I'm not going to do the same thing every time."

I have to make good things so good comedians want to talk to me.

Well, every movie is an experiment. And the only way you can grow at what you're doing is to take chances. You can't try to stick with what worked last time.