I always say the classier cousin of 'Anchorman' is 'Mad Men,' because when you really look at it, why do people really love Don Draper in 'Mad Men?' He's just a terrible guy. But we know why he's terrible, and I think that's really key to why you can be sympathetic to a character.

I would never do 'Stardust Memories' because I don't particularly like that kind of movie - that would be why I wouldn't do that.

Sony is the coolest studio. They are really amazing. I think part of it comes from they're not an American corporation. They don't work by quite the same rules. And their studio heads have a lot of autonomy.

White-collar crime has been marketed - billions of dollars have been put in to have us be bored by it.

If you look at 'Avatar,' could you imagine if you did 'Avatar' for 50 million dollars? It would be ridiculous! You would almost be getting laughs from the audience, unless you got a real indie director to do something incredibly stylised.

Sometimes I know a joke I'm going to yell out ahead of time, but most of the time it's stream of conscious. You never really know it until you've got everyone dressed up, the set is built, all the extras are here.

A dry stretch of commentary in the middle of an 'Anchorman' movie would have been a terrible thing.

Basically, we used to have a rule at 'Saturday Night Live' that you're not allowed to bring up 'The Simpsons' at the rewrite table, because 'The Simpsons' has done every joke there is. Every week there would be guys going, 'The Simpsons did that.' I go, 'C'mon.' And 'South Park,' too.

Actually, 'Wayne's World 2' I kind of liked. I think 'Wayne's World 2' does have some creative things in it, some ideas in it.

If you make action movies, the critics will savage you, and then your movies are outdated the following week with the new wave of special effects.

Ultimately, the only people who are in any way edified by hanging with famous people are you at the age of 11 and your mom.

Celebrities and 'famous' people are just regular folks. I know, it's a shocking and potentially dangerous statement.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.

You have a guy like Bernie Madoff literally steal $80 billion, you know, AIG steal hundreds of billions, Goldman Sachs. Crime has changed so much, and to really do a movie with, like, drug dealers or drug smugglers is kind of almost quaint at this point.

There's nothing the people love more than a Federal Reserve joke.

All you can really do as director is sort of set a tone.

I guess HBO did a giant 'War in the Pacific' mini-series that cost, like, a fortune, and there was a little moment where they literally had no money. And even though the show had become kind of a cult hit, there was an issue of whether they could actually afford to do it.

Tom Brokaw was never young.

That's always the trick with the sequels, is how much do you repeat from the first one. Because we all get bummed out when you go see a sequel and it's beat for beat.

The way you really stop Al-Qaeda is by stopping their funding. It's not by carpet-bombing or land invasions or anything.

If you go back and watch 'The French Connection,' it's been cannibalized so many times. There are certain movies like that, where you see the original and think, 'This isn't so great.' And the reason it isn't so great is because everyone has copied it.

If you do a Western that's funny, there's no way people don't call it a spoof or a parody, even though it may not be.

As far as how much you listen to the audience, you listen to them when they really hate something.

Matt Braunger really makes me laugh; I like that guy a lot.