Everybody talks about wanting to change things and help and fix, but ultimately all you can do is fix yourself. And that's a lot. Because if you can fix yourself, it has a ripple effect.

I was a kid who was really unhappy with being bussed. I was one of the angry people in the halls.

The movie studios, they only like to make - I make a joke, but it's true - if the movie has the word "man" and a number in the title, they'll make it. If it doesn't have that, it's an R-rated raunchy comedy, and that's it. Any other movie that you're going to make is going to be an independent one. So for filmmakers who want to do something other than "man" and a number, it's either independent films or television, which is like the place for real creative filmmakers to go.

Something is wrong here, and it's more than easy access to guns or violence on TV. It's about lack of love and attachment to loving people early in life.

Harry [Shearer] and I had an idea to do a movie about rock 'n' roll from the roadies' perspective, from backstage. Then Meat Loaf came out with a movie called Roadie and we thought, "Oh, we can't do that now." So we kind of discarded the idea.

Usually, I have in mind what I want to do. I shoot pretty economically, so I'm not shooting tons of stuff that I could change, all that much. I'll cut something or add a little something back, but not too much. This is maybe the producer part of me, but I'm always worried about the budget, so I shoot what I know I need to shoot for the film.

With the films I've done, I've written on them, I've acted in some of them. And even ones I haven't acted in, I've acted them out just to be sure another actor can do them.