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

I remember the review from Michael Wilmington in Chicago, and Gene Siskel wrote really smart reviews where I thought, "Oh, they totally get what we're attempting to do."

Even now if I see someone working out, in great shape, like a 40-year-old guy with his shirt off jogging I always think, "Look at that idiot." That's why everyone in my movie is kind of goofy because I'm a champion of the goofball. What sucks is I have to work out now not to die. I was always happy not working out because I never wanted to be someone who worked out to look good, but now I have to try to not die, which is such a drag.

I like to make movies the way people made movies in the '70s, where they lived and died with these stories, and cared about them, and went to war for them, and they all said something they wanted to say.

Right when I started getting solid was when I was offered a lot of writing work. And when The Ben Stiller Show was picked up, I realized there was no way for me to do stand-up three or four nights a week and run this television show with Ben. So that was the moment when I had to make a choice.

In my beginnings, those nos were ever-present-even today, those nos are ever-present-and it's the workaround. I always found a workaround for people who turned their back to me. It's a way of being persistent that makes them take notice.

I think my instinct creatively is to make things that are very funny and happy and silly. And in this moment where the world is very scary, I feel like my role is to make people laugh really hard.