Biography

[on directing Robert Downey Jr. in The Judge (2014)] He loyally followed the material. When an actor becomes a movie-star, always in the spotlight like Robert, they tend to swing really hard and go for it, but he didn't do that. He had incredible control and I was profoundly impressed.

Laughter is really a gift. It's the most vulnerable state you can be in.

I believe comedy should be free to go anywhere. I believe that there is tasteful and untasteful, I think they're very close to each other, and it's how you handle it tonally. But I'm an equal opportunity offender. I'm happy to go at anything that has a cause to be laughed at.

Wedding Crashers (2005) is a very soft movie in the way that it's emotional. It's about friendship, love and relationships. I tend to go to the light. My frustration in life is that I've always been a lover of Paul McCartney. You want to be taken seriously as the artist and be John Lennon, and I've always been drawn to the Paul McCartney colors in life.

Laughter is binary: It either happens or it doesn't. As each joke arrives in the course of a film, the cavernous space of the theater is either filled with joy and laughter or with the quiet of cringing embarrassment. Every time you step to the plate to make a joke, you're going to experience one or the other.