To me, as a director and an actor, that's the main thing. "What's the heart of this story? What's the humanity of this story? And if the movie doesn't have it, then why am I watching it?" Even if it's a silly comedy, like Superbad or Knocked Up - Judd Apatow, I love, because he's all about heart. The humor comes out of the humanity.

I allow myself to have my feelings of disappointment and discouragement, but never to sit and wallow in them.

I am pretty relentless about exercise. I love working out and doing cardiovascular workouts. I'm now doing the Whole Life Challenge to discover the unhealthy patterns in my diet and to adjust them to more reasonable levels. And more yoga!

I always wanted to be an actor. I was one of those lucky kids - or cursed kids - who always knew what he wanted to do.

It's the kind of sage wisdom coming from a guy who was 25 at the time, but already had 20 years of experience. Kurt Russell is a wonderful actor and a great guy.

I think that idealism is always there in America. It's a spirit that's been subverted lately, and sold down the river to the contractors, what with the privatizing of all aspects of the government. It's so cold and cynical - all dollars and cents and parcel it up and sell it out and downgrade it and outsource it. They don't consider what it does to people. I think the spirit of this country is finally coming back, and hopefully it will triumph.

I'd been working on more traditional movie sets and TV shows at Universal. All of a sudden, here we're on location in Animal House, and it's down and dirty and quick. It was the way the new commercial world was shooting; the way the indie world was shooting. These were lighter, faster cameras. It was a generational change.