I Learned Over The Years That It's

I Did A Comedy With Al Franken About His Character Stuart Smalley, Which Was Really About Alcoholism And Addiction And Codependency. It Had Some Painful Stuff In It. When We Showed It To Focus Groups, Some Of Them Actually Said, "if I Want To See A Dysfunctional Family, I'll Stay Home."

I Feel A Big Obligation To The Audience, Almost In A Moral Sense, To Say Something Useful. If I'm Going To Spend A Year Of My Life On These Things, I Want Something That I Feel That Strongly About.

The Rule Of Thumb For A Director Or Producer - Which Prevents Them From Just Sticking Their Names On Everything - Is That You Have To Contribute Substantially More Than 50 Percent Of The Character Dialogue And Story.

I Never Read Playboy Before I Started Working There And Stopped Reading It The Day I Quit.

I've Tried To Stay Away From Mild Satire. I Want An Audience To Feel Something More Powerful For Their Ten Bucks. If They're Going To Spend Two Hours With Me, And Trust Me To Lead Them Around, I'd Like To Take Them Someplace Special.