I really like transgressive characters that have an alternate world view. I've actually written a fair number of kids movies, and I'll insert these kid-friendly articulate sociopaths who are usually yelling at the children for their own benefit.

I am fortunate in that I am motivated to do what I do by just a really goofy desire to do it. Maybe I have demons that are hidden away someplace, and I'll discover mine someday.

One of the things that I have always been interested in is the actual experience of people in their lives as opposed to what we think their experience should be.

I have always been drawn to characters, and this was true for my feature-writing career as well, where there is a tension between rule-breaking and rule-following.

Spies have the same kinds of needs and desires that everybody does, which is funny. The best kind of comedy derives from that kind of truth.

You don't want to be slavishly doing the same thing over and over again that everybody else has done, but at the same time, you're conscious of, "This is important. I owe something to my ten year old self right now. I need to respect that." I need for that kid who is obsessively reading comic books, I need there to be something rewarding for him where he's like, I didn't waste my time. I know what this is.

I'm always looking for what's something that Bradley Whitford's character can say that is completely outrageous and completely wrong, but in a double-reverse way is actually totally right. I don't really like where there's a story and you lay a few jokes on top of it.