So many stars who have shows are intimidated by having people around them be funnier than them. It's always the unsuccessful ones. Look at Seinfeld - he's great because he let everyone be hilarious.

Hollywood is a business and movie studios are only going to do what's going to make money. It's not an altruistic thing. They are blatant grabs for money. Responsible studios want to make quality pictures, but at the same time nobody is going to make quality pictures they know aren't going to make any money.

At the end of the day the question comes, what are you doing for the world? You have to try to do something that's going to add something positive.

I always felt, and still feel, one of my best strengths as a director is having been an actor for a long time. Nobody knows actors and their insecurities and strengths and everything more than somebody who's done it before.

What I do as a director is really create a safe environment that everyone can feel very comfortable in and experiment within so that they don't hold back anything. You never ever want someone to go, 'Oh I shouldn't have done that.' There isn't anything you shouldn't try. If it's terrible, who cares?

At the end of the day if you want to entertain people, you've got to take your ego out of the equation.

You have to know everything. You have to know how to light a scene. You have to know all this technical stuff about directing. No, you don't. You can know as much or as little as you have to. Your main job is to get great performances and tell the story correctly and capture it correctly. Then it's just basically yours to complicate or simplify as much as you want.