I wanted to see how funny I could be without making the choice that every 10 minutes something big and visual had to happen.

I'm making a movie about relationships, and I'm surrounded by guys scared of talking to girls.

I was very combative as a creative person at that time [while The Ben Stiller Show]. I didn't understand how to play politics with the studios. I didn't know how to creatively collaborate with the people who were paying the bills, and that came up all the time on every project I was doing, and it took me a really long time to figure out how to collaborate in a healthy way.

If you make a bad movie about stand-up, then comedians will mock you for the rest of your life.

When you're making your 20th movie, it might be the 20th most incredible thing that's ever happened to you!

I'm getting older, so how people face grave circumstances is of interest to me. And you meet a lot of people who are very courageous, and it doesn't reek of something funny to write about, but I always think that the higher the stakes, the bigger the laughs can be, and the more emotional the scenes can be.

I worshipped guys like Bill Maher, Jay Leno, and Jerry Seinfeld, and was doing my variation of that. But as a young person with no political point of view or life experience, it was as funny as you can imagine.