I still carry the residue of the pressure I felt as a child to read and appreciate the right books. Growing up, I never allowed myself to read beach reading. I was always plowing through Ford Madox Ford's 'Good Solider' or something I wasn't equipped to understand.

It's kind of major, learning to drive. I feel like it kicked up other stuff in my life.

How you start the movie is critical. And how often you feel that there's no reason for how it's starting.

I've run into more people walking in L.A. than if I drove. Because you stand out so much if you walk. People from my past have stopped their cars and said, 'Hey!' But if I was in a car, they never would've seen me.

The puppet characters were combinations of people I had known and to some degree aspects of my own personality. Weird was based on someone I knew in Chicago. Dirty Dragon was based on a good friend I had in Indianapolis.

A lot of my friend's mothers and parents worked at Paramount Studios, so I would always go. I met the Fonz when I was really young, like four or five years old. I was always around people in entertainment all the time throughout my whole life.

There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.

To establish personal relationships with the people you work with is stupid, because you never know when the winds will change. I try not to get too close to people.