Too many people are surfing the web and trying to figure out the politics of getting a movie made or taking meetings and trying to get someone to read something instead of creating a truly great script, because something great has a great chance of getting made, but something average that you've sort of talked people into reading doesn't have as good a shot.
Once I was in college, I was actually trying to write a comedy screenplay and I wrote basically the worst movie ever and just threw it away and never showed anybody. Everyone needs to get that first bad screenplay out of your system before you start writing other stuff.
I just like to write stuff that makes people laugh, stuff that works, a fun movie that everyone can enjoy. I'm not really worried about the packaging, marketing, and what the studios are going to run next.
Comedy works in fashion cycles, in a way. And sometimes, studios will imitate those cycles a little too much.
I like to count myself as someone who doesn't follow that stuff and someone who's just trying to invent stories and characters and movies that are just funny and work because they're good and not because they're a slight variation that were hot a few months ago.
I've seen some movies where people improvise and will say some bizarre phrase they had heard the other day, and unless it's coming directly from character and the moment they're experiencing and driving the movie forward, then it's always welcome.
I love when people improvise as long as they're great improvisers, what I mean by that is people can improvise within their characters and within the scene.
I'm an improviser at heart, when I'm writing, I'm improvising in my head. When you're an improviser on stage, you can never be precious about anything, you can't control what anyone else is going to do. The best stuff comes out of moments of inspiration that spontaneously happen.
I think everyone needs to try their first script, and usually the first one isn't as good. You learn so much as you're trying to figure it out.
Everyone's so nice in Thailand, and it's a beautiful place - the temples, the culture. But everyone's so nice that it's almost inefficient.
