It took me forever, learning improvisation, because I had studied with Lee Strasberg - I dropped out of Chicago and went to his classes in New York for a couple of years, once or twice a week. What I didn't realize was I was learning directing because he wasn't all that good about acting, not for me.

You can always tell gifted and highly intelligent people as they always turn to the past. Any young person who knows anything that happened before 1980, or 1990, or 2000 for that matter, is immediately someone who is intelligent, probably creative, maybe a writer. Nobody who is drawn to the past and learning about the past is not gifted.

Most great plays of the past lose their grip on immediacy; on application to our lives right now.

It's not a film-maker's job to explain his technique, but to tell his story the best way he can.

With Portlandia, I don't think our intention is always to find something funny. Sometimes the humor comes from taking something really seriously. We're okay with making somebody feel uncomfortable or uneasy.

My hopes and aspirations haven't changed since I started in this business. They've been to be able to play drama, to be able to play comedy, to be able to play leading men, and to be able to play character roles. I have no other aspirations in this regard.

People think I'm a very serious actor, which I am. But you know, if you don't have a sense of humor doing what I do, you perish.

Stree' is a horror comedy in which a bridal ghost who is back in town to take revenge from men, she is the one giving a lot of pain to the men. We have reversed the role, which is such an amazing feeling.