You'd get on the plane; and every single person is somebody really, really famous. It just killed me. On one flight you'd have Linda Gray, O.J. Simpson, Robert De Niro, Carol Burnett, Loni Anderson and Burt Reynolds... and Francis Ford Coppola.
I've always been very interested in ensemble work. One reason why I don't go out and do a stand-up act is that I did it once and I found it unsatisfying. I don't really like being out there by myself. I like reacting with other people.
When I was about five my dad built a stage for me in our basement. A full stage, with a curtain, a backdrop and a dressing room. There were three colored spotlights - a red one, a white one, and a blue one. Blue was for nighttime scenes, and red was for when we were in hell. If the neighborhood kids wanted to use the stage, they had to incorporate me into the play.
Part of what I do comes from the fact that I don't know any jokes to tell. And when I do they're really flat and don't work.
We're in a situation now where fewer and fewer small films get made. People want these big giant tentpole sort of things, and I don't know, it's getting harder and harder to make a small movie.
I'd love to work with Francis Ford Coppola. I met Coppola on an airplane.
The moment that I realized my name was going to be said in the same sentence as children and sex, that's really intense. That's something I knew from that very moment, whatever happens past that point, something's out there in the air that is really bad.
Yeah, this is what I think was a quality of movies, is you're in a group of people. You're sharing something with people. Whether those other people make you laugh more, you're all laughing. You're all happy together. There's something... manmade about that in a way that's - I'm not sure how that manifests itself in nature, but culturally we've set that up when we invented theater and the movies and all that stuff.
I wasn't a great improviser when I started there; I'm not really up on current events. I would always just mug, just try to get my laughs from making faces. So I decided to do a character who should never have become a comic - somebody you would see at the Comedy Store and go, "This person is never going to make it."
In my experience I haven't met too many uptight black people. I'm sure they're out there. Like I'm some big authority and I've lived in the inner city and ghetto.
A large part of the reason I want to be so mysterious is so that I can move on and do something serious at some point in my career X years from now. It might be very difficult otherwise, because I'm... wild
I can sit in the room with the other writers and just keep saying no until there's something I really like or until I come up with something. In that respect the proportion of what's mine and what's other people's is controlled by me. It isn't even fair to talk about.
I feel the only way I'm going to be successful in moving on is if I keep a separation.
I can be on the Tonight Show, but not with Johnny [Carson]. He uses my name in his monologue all the time.
I just feel in a lot of ways black people are so much looser and cooler. Just as a culture, it's so much more real.
I was looking to be pale, you know, like the kind of person who has that pigment in their skin where no matter what the weather is they have pink cheeks. I had a couple of friends like that. But it was all very instinctive in a way. I never really thought that much about it.
The first time I met Prince he invented me to his birthday party in Minneapolis. It was a costume party and I came as a beatnik - a beret and a charcoal goatee. He was dressed like an executioner. I talked to him for awhile and he didn't know who I was, and when I told him he was real surprised.
It's the most natural progression for me to becoming a singing sensation next. And so many people have offered to be on it. Eddie Van Halen... and Prince, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper will probably be a backup trio.
I remember one play [when I was kid] was about this murderous mad scientist, and my whole part was to be the guy who got thrown into a vat of acid as the curtain went up. I was very pissed off at these older kids; they'd outsmarted me.
The original suit was designed by a guy named Mr. Jay from Hollywood. But nowadays I'm having the suit duplicated. At this point I have about three good suits and about three really raggedy ones.
I'm going to try to do as many styles as I can. A salsa number, rock and roll, country.... I've talked to a million people about it. Obviously, I'd love Prince to do it. I'm sure he'll produce the whole album for me.
I think there's a danger that some people look at the success of my first movie as a fluke. So I want to make sure that my second film is an even bigger success. Then if I direct my third movie and it's terrible, it'll be okay.
I think the first time I was on The David Letterman Show, he didn't quite know what to expect. I think people generally are just a little afraid.
I usually go in ahead of time, like at a rehearsal, or a meeting, and tell them, "It may appear that I'm going to go haywire, but I'm not." I always map out what I'm going to do. Still, a lot of it is improvised.
I'd love to do a talk show. But I'm too busy for it. It's just too much work.
