Jewish comedians do the best Jewish jokes, and anyone else doing that, they don't have a right to, because they're not coming from that experience. I know that's a slightly heightened example, but it's the same thing. We're bumpkins, so we can make bumpkin jokes.

Spoilers are cowardly. They're just people who want to anesthetize themselves against the tension and the experience that the director and the artist have set up. If you go in there knowing what's going to happen, it's like reading the last page of the book. It's just cowardly.

I lived in the cultural equivalent of Tatooine when I was a little boy. I didn't live in London, I didn't live right in the middle of where everything was happening, I lived on the very edge of it.

Often you read something about yourself, and either you've been ironic, and that doesn't work in print, or it paraphrases something that you said, and has a different meaning.

A movie is a creative process from its conception, through its writing, to its execution, to the editing. I think with the best films there is some kind of contribution from one person all the way through that. The best films are made by people who write, direct, and edit, so there's continuity.

I think at its best the American sense of humor is the same as the British sense of humor at its best, which is to be wry and ironic and self deprecating.

One thing that irritates me is when people kind of make assumptions.