Tower Records is like a temple to me. I'll stay there for hours. Nobody can shop for records with me. It drives them out of their minds.
Directing is a big responsibility to take on. I think I'm only good at doing things I know very well. I don't direct movies because I get offered the new vampire movie or science fiction movie. I don't get offered those, anyway, but if I did, I would just tell 'em, "Look, I'm the wrong guy." I only do things about people and situations, and I do the ones that I think I'm the best guy for the job on, which is usually something I generate myself.
These days and times you can't do eclectic records. In the '60s you could, but not anymore.
I can't sit through plays and musical theatre. I just want to run up onstage and mess up their hair and turn over the furniture.
Heavy role in the movies that I've done that I have loved and fit my soul; A Simple Plan, Monster's Ball, Sling Blade, One False Move, Bad Santa even. I mean Bad Santa is a comedy, and it's a very dark comedy, and it's become like iconic, you know.
A lot of people are doing television now. Great, legendary actors are doing movies on cable and stuff now, and you can't blame them, because they're still doing adult dramas and adult comedies on those stations.
I'm more influenced by novelists than I am by filmmakers.
I'm as highly insecure as a human can be.
Nowadays the movies that people are going to see in the theaters are the big-event movies, like Spider-Man or something, or they're 25-year-old models who are vampires, or they're very broad comedies, or they're standard action movies. So if you're going to work for a studio and do a movie for the budget that the movie needs, those are the kinds of movies you'll be in.
These days movies are cut very quickly and sort of fragmented and I tend to do slower moving stories where people develop relationships with people. I think I'd probably do a lot better if I lived in Europe - I think it's more of a European sensibility somehow.
They always say 'Is there going to be a sequel to Bad Santa?' and you know, I mean, a long time ago they would talk about, you know, we're going to do a sequel to that but it was never serious. And they said 'Would you do it?' and I said out of all the movies I've done, that was a lot of fun, and maybe I would do a sequel if it ever came up and it made sense, but I said I don't think that's ever going to happen.
I think I fully commit myself to any role to the extent to which I can. In other words there's some roles that maybe it's just not there, in other words on the page. You know, I mean your job is you need to play the governor and that's what you do. I mean I'm not going to stay up all night if I'm playing a functional role. And I've played a couple of functional roles. And so I'm not going to do anything other, look he's a functional guy. He says hey mister, you forgot your hat.
When I was coming up in the '80s television, if you were on television that meant either you were a young actor just coming up like I was, or you were an older actor whose career was over and you had to go on television.
I have been fortunate to get some really good scripts over the years and I haven't turned down anything that I regretted so far. And my manager who I've been with for over 25 years is very good at knowing what I should and shouldn't do a lot of times.
I don't see anything wrong with a cell phone. That's great. You have a flat tire in the middle of the night; it works better than digging in your pocket for a quarter and looking for a payphone eight miles down the road.
Reality shows are usually created by people doing and saying stupid things.
When you're a kid, somebody's mid-forties, you think they're an old man. Then you grow up and it's like, I was a kid.
Nothing wrong with computer as things. They can work wonders in communications and business and medicine and everything else.
I'm not sure that I'm really relevant as a director anymore. Or as a writer, either, to tell you the truth.
Now, if you want to do realistic, kind of heavier acting stuff, you do it on Amazon or Netflix or whatever or HBO.
My dad didn't hug me every day and say he loved me and anything like that.
Sometimes I have songs born out of stories.
Comedy is harder than drama, because with comedy you're expecting a result..you make them laugh. [If] they ain't laughing then you're screwed.
I've lived in California for half of my life. It's weird, everyone thinks of me as this guy who's from the South ... I'm really a Californian.
When I was growing up, when I was 11 years old I was listening to The Mothers of Invention. You know, I mean I was a Frank Zappa fan in Arkansas.
