I like to shoot scenes where I can see the beginning, middle and end of the entire scene. But, when you edit a movie together, you can just cut right into the middle. You don't need to see them walk into the room and put their jacket on the chair. There's always a lot of shoe leather that you can remove.
The audience doesn't care that most of happened. They just want a good movie.
When Jim Carrey signed on to star in [The Cable Guy], and then they asked me to produce it, I made a very brief plea to direct - which was rejected really as quickly as anything can be.
I loved the idea that I could write a joke and someone else would have to take the risk of performing it.
I used to watch 10 hours of television a night, my entire childhood. And I don't think it did all good things to me. I certainly still have social problems that are a result of being in my room alone too much.
I always felt as a kid that I was underappreciated, invisible or weird, but I've always secretly thought people would one day appreciate what is different about me. I'm always putting that message out there.
You can work on a movie for years, and you won't know until you show it to an audience for the first time if it makes any sense to them at all, if they're touched, if they find it funny, so it's endlessly exciting, because failure is just right there all the time, and your chances of success don't rise that much based on the fact that you succeeded last time.
I very rarely made any move to direct anything. I didn't have any faith in myself.
I think the world is changing and all that matters is that I'm creating things.
I feel like everybody's waiting for a job y'know, you can make a movie on your phone. And so there really is no reason to worry about how to get in with people- and you can do that, there's a lot to learn working for people -but you can just make a movie, where in the old days that was completely impossible.
I think, there were probably problems with show business where producers and directors would try to get the writing credit also. So they created a rule where the bar, to get your name added to the writing credits, if you've done a revision, is very high if you're also the producer or director.
Sometimes a story idea will come to me, and suddenly I've figured out the whole thing, and I feel like I'm collaborating with something other than myself.
Nowadays, when kids decide they like an artist, they'll absorb everything that artist has ever done in a single night.
In my beginnings, those nos were ever-present-even today, those nos are ever-present-and it's the workaround. I always found a workaround for people who turned their back to me. It's a way of being persistent that makes them take notice.
It's so difficult to shock America these days.
If a woman says, I love myself; I love my body; I'm comfortable with my life, comfortable with my mistakes, and I deserve a seat at every table and everything should be completely equal, there are guys who lose their minds.
I wanted to see how funny I could be without making the choice that every 10 minutes something big and visual had to happen.
All of my jokes were about not being able to meet anybody. I didn't have any insight into anything - even my own insecurities.
I think a lot of Hollywood is in retreat right now trying to figure out how to make money and make the safest bets.
If the movie's not communicating, it's not working.
I'm the guy who gets uncomfortable. That's why I was able to write 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' and 'Knocked Up.' I believe in those guys.
I still feel like a nerd.
My way of dealing with the world has always been to make fun of it and observe it but not take part in it.That's how I became a writer. But when you have kids, suddenly you have to be part of things. It leads almost to a breakdown because your whole defense mechanism is now really destructive.
I didn't want to be a director for hire. It really just took me a long time to learn how to direct and to feel up to the job.
For me, until I know that the audience really gets what I'm trying to communicate I'm not done.
