Disappointment is an endless wellspring of comedy inspiration.
Michael Jackson wanted to be in Men in Black II. He told me he had seen the first Men in Black in Paris and had stayed behind and sat there and wept. I had to explain to him that it was a comedy.
Programming is a pretty tricky thing to start learning. You need to combine it with comedy to get a wider audience.
I used to write bits and pieces of comedy material for various comics that were at the Windmill... as well as my film job, I was under contract, I was allowed to do that and everything.
Here's my take on Andy Kaufman... For Kaufman, comedy was a skill that was open for examination. He didn't just do comedy, he deconstructed it like it was a transistor set. He pulled out all the wires and switched them around, often in front of our very eyes.
This is going to sound pretentious, but I like comedy that addresses something I find either worrisome or interesting in my life.
In 1986, I was attacked in the street as I helped Neil Mullarkey from the Comedy Store Players to put up posters. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time - midnight - and we were English. I got kicked in the head.
In life, there's a ying and a yang and a balance. And when you don't have balance, you have comedy.
What I loved about 'The 40 Year-Old Virgin,' the title is the easy sell, but when you see the movie, the comedy is more free-form and more relatable.