Quote

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.

Comedy tends to come out of things which are quite painful and serious.

There's obviously a lot of tragedy in comedy; I really enjoy the paradox of what a really good comedy is.

After making several tragic movies in a row, I was looking to do a comedy, and one without cynicism.

Comedy is like horror - you have to shock something in the viewer's system to make them feel it.

When you do a movie as opposed to a TV show, it's always tempting to think everything has to be big and exaggerated and spectacular. And in fact, a lot of the funniest comedy films have been very intimate.

Regardless of what kind of film, the number one rule of comedy is to never take yourself too seriously and then the next rule is you can't have any self-consciousness, otherwise it kills the laugh, and that will never change.

Comedies always need to be provocative and catch your attention in a way that dramas don't have to.

Laurence Olivier said in an interview once that when he plays a tragedy he always aims for the funny parts, and the other way around. Because in a comedy you look for what's serious. I think that's true. Sometimes things are really funny if you're absolutely earnest. If you're really serious, it's hilarious.

I think if you turn down the volume on the good comedy, you should not even know if it's a comedy or not. It should look like a drama.