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In comedy you have to be willing to not take yourself seriously, you know? I take comedy really seriously, and so to take comedy seriously, you must not, you cannot, ever take yourself seriously.

It's tricky: with comedy in any movie, you're hungry for an audience to embrace a movie and be a part of an experience that's comedic; it's the easier way to go in some ways.

If you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you've got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.

I suppose some studio executive would say it's death for a comedy if people aren't all laughing in the same places, but I find with my movies that people laugh in very different places. I can't control it.

What's great about comedy, obviously, is that you set up a situation that people assume one thing and then you break the assumption. That's basically the backbone to comedy. You set up a situation, let people make an assumption, and then you break the assumption.

The number one rule of comedy acting is 'don't try to be funny.' Act as seriously as possible.

I love comedy because I can laugh at myself. I don't take myself too seriously.

Whatever makes you laugh is fine, and all we can do as comedy professionals is try to steer you towards something that we think is a little better - but not put you down or just perplex you in the process.

For people who have done comedy after a certain point in time, I think there's a base level of, 'O.K., I think I'm decently funny.' But unless you just have some massive ego, I really think you're still fighting against that.

I think the first rule of comedy is that it has to be funny and I find a lot of the broad comedy which is sent to me, painfully unfunny.