For me, it's incredibly fun -- especially once you get, like, a little bit of success. People in Hollywood are loath to tell you when they think that you're being stupid, but your brother's always willing. |
I think that comedy can act like an anesthetic, so you can talk about relatively painful things and have it be palatable. |
I would start my day reading the papers and feeling anxious about terrorism ... then by evening, I was watching TV and worrying about whether Constantine was going to get kicked off American Idol . I thought there was something strange about this picture. |
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I genuinely believe people in the administration went to war in Iraq for a dream, to create a liberal democracy in the Middle East, the only problem being it's a little more difficult than that. |
If someone really wanted a scathing parody of the administration, they're probably going to be disappointed, because the movie has a fantasy element of that character being awakened. He doesn't magically become extremely intelligent, but he does start trying to come to terms with the real world. |
The movie examines the role of dreams and ambitions in American culture. It's about what's wrong with America and how close it is to what's right with America. |
When you're making a comedy about really serious issues, you're kind of in the position of being an idiot savant. You're using the vocabulary of broad comedy to talk about what's most important. And I don't have a Michael Moore-like urge to offend people or get people angry at me. If anything, that idea stresses me out. |