I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.

The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.

I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.

I never thought about success. I always thought about doing the job at hand. My goal was getting through the show that night.

I've always said people say on a dramatic show, 'I was crying. It was so emotional when he went and grabbed that little girl from a burning building and handed her over to her mother.' In comedy, the best thing you can say is, 'I think it's funny.'

Anchorman' was never supposed to be a popular, like, hit movie. That movie was a cheap movie - it felt like we were working on a weird independent comedy in a way.

I'm not an impressionist, per se, but if you do any kind of comedy - and they ask you to do that, most of the time - there's some degree of appreciation, I think, involving somebody you like.

We were the only ones interested in comedy. Everybody else wanted to be Martin Scorsese.