Comic Con has become a very relevant venue for all films.

You can't make a movie about making movies - it's boring.

There's a nostalgic aspect to the 'Iron Man' franchise for me.

I think that anything that leads to creativity and good work is good.

I wanted to be a New York City firefighter. I didn't make it in, though.

I'm of a generation of director that came up understanding special effects.

I'm not on chef level, but I'd make a good line cook. That's not too shabby.

Everybody loves a hit. There is nothing as fun as making a cultural splash with a movie.

When I'm working with improv people, I give them the green light to just bring it and try things.

I don't think I'm egotistical as much as I'm taking responsibility for what I'm putting out there.

I've always been fascinated by chefs and the worlds of chefs - what they do is incredibly cinematic.

I remember the first script I wrote after 'Swingers' was a Western, and I just couldn't get it made.

Back to the painting of the Sistine Chapel, there's always been run-ins between benefactors and artists.

I've always wanted to call the shots because I would rather fail than not have a chance to figure it out on my own.

Especially in the food business, critics take very seriously how much power they have. They can shut a restaurant down.

The irony is that the more unapologetically sexist men are in movies, the more women tend to be attracted to them in person.

Scorsese's been a hero of mine since I was young. If you saw 'Swingers,' you know I was definitely fixated on his body of work.

Thankfully, I have a background as an actor, and you learn how to live in that world of not knowing what's going to happen next.

I'm a pretty early adopter of social media. There's a whole subculture to it. I'm smart enough not to tweet things out of emotion.

For a movie - any movie - to work, all the bread has to fall jelly side up; everything has to go right. You have to hit the zeitgeist.

I was the worst extra, I was 'that' guy. I was the guy on the phone trying to get the Oscar for best extra - for best background performance.

There's a lot of real estate in our brain dedicated to facial recognition and to physics. That takes a lot of processing power out of our brain.

I want to make sure everyone's having a good time because when I ask you to come to my movie, I'm throwing a party for you. I want you to enjoy it.

I like reading reviews. If they're clearly hating on you, I try not to read that deeply. But if they really are trying to understand, it's interesting.

I love 'Star Wars,' you know, and I can't remember the last story meeting I've been in where 'Star Wars' wasn't referenced. It's so perfect in so many ways.

'King Kong,' especially the first two acts of it, is a really good example of the use of miniatures mixed with digital characters and how convincing it was.

I don't know that a movie like 'Daredevil' did better for having Ben Affleck then 'Spider-Man' did having Tobey Maguire, who was a relative unknown at the time.

I think 'Chef' is about somebody who's in the middle of his life, and he's kind of lost his passion and his voice, so he seeks out some refinement and redemption.

I find that people... very few people think that what they're doing is bad, and usually the people who think what they're doing is bad it has more to do with guilt.

If you're going to be an R already, you may as well be 'The Hangover,' and you may as well be as shocking as possible, because that's what delivers the most return.

Acting is the most fun. I like to do it and it's great that I can still do that, but you know, you don't really have a lot of control over things, so it's real hit or miss.

I did a guest thing on 'My Name Is Earl,' and there is something about being involved in a TV show that's in the midst of its popularity that frees up the creative process.

A thoughtful piece of criticism by somebody who understands the context of what you are doing is a tremendous gift and honor to read, even if they don't completely embrace your work.

Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins' set the bar very high for the superhero movie, as it showed that you could get a great cast for these movies and take a real filmmaker's perspective.

Half the people think I write Obama's speeches; the other half think I'm on 'Entourage.' So I'm at the level of fame where people kind of know who I am, but they confuse me with other people.

I cooked a little bit in my first movie; I did a movie called 'Made.' For the little kid in the movie, I do a scene where I'm preparing a pasta puttanesca. I always loved watching that scene.

I can't begin to tell you how fulfilling the perennial nature of 'Elf' on television has been for me. It's great to be able to connect parents with children both emotionally and through humor.

I think what's fun about the Western genre is the character arcs are very strong and, arguably, more interesting and exciting than the action that is metaphorically representational of those arcs.

I've been in the service industry. I've bar-tended. I've waited tables, and I've worked at pizza places; I've made pizza. I've had a lot of jobs, and many of them were in the food service industry.

I know that when I watch TV, I want to be transformed and transported, not just by the characters that I grow to love over the hours and seasons of watching but also the world that it plants me into.

You have to find something that you have to obsess over if you're making a movie about it. As a director, you have to be able to pick something that excites you enough that you can breathe it every day.

When Iron Man's flying, we'd send real planes up to do the choreography so that we'd get the camerawork to really look like a cameraman was following from another plane. It gives it that 'Top Gun' look.

What's fun about chefs is that they're big guys, often, and they might not look like the most athletic people, but they're very powerful people, and they have tremendous stamina... It takes a toll on their body, too.

If you look at the mythology of aliens, there's a lot about gold. It's about them coming for gold; whether that's a simplification or not. If you think of 'Chariot of the Gods,' there's this reoccurring theme of gold.

There is no free lunch, so if you're playing with the big train set - on big movies - it's a lot of money they're entrusting you with, and you have to get that money back for them. I don't take that responsibility lightly.

People look at Marvel movies as epic in scope, but if you look back at the comics, you realise that Marvel heroes were often a reaction to the square-jawed DC characters like Superman, who were flawless and beyond reproach.

At the end of the day, it seems like there's a critic archetype for food movies, like with 'Ratatouille' or anything. You know, if you were doing a puppet show about chefs, one puppet would be the chef, one would be the critic.

Ever since I read 'Kitchen Confidential,' I saw a little light bulb go off. Being a chef is like being on a pirate ship; it's not like 'Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?' or whatever my impression was as I was growing up.

Of course I danced a lot when I was making 'Swingers.' The swing music scene was big in Hollywood, and I went to places like The Derby. And, after I wrote it and was trying to get it made, I would go every week so I'd be good at dancing.

Unfortunately, we are not painters and authors, where we can do something in isolation. We require a lot of money to create what we create. It's almost like being an architect: You can't be an architect and build whatever buildings you want to.

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