When I was a kid I thought movie stars were women and men who were in these great films that we still look at now. But I don't think there are too many films coming out these days that we're going to look at in the future and say 'This is one of the great ones.'

We're trying to set up a movie for me in the near future. It's going to be similar to the story of how I got discovered. Kinda like my own version of '8 Mile.'

I don't think know if anything's going to translate anywhere. You're making a movie you hope it's going to be funny you can't think about how it's going to go over.

When I was younger I wanted to be a big movie star who'd get to be funny on talk shows and then I wanted to retire and write science fiction.

What I fell in love with as a child was 'My Fair Lady ' 'Funny Face ' 'American in Paris ' and 'Singin' in the Rain.' Just perfect movies to me and I was dancing. I started ballet when I was three. And I fell in love with those movies and fell in love with Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron.

I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang Tod Browning and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don't care about the genre.

Movies don't look hard but figuring it out getting the shape of it getting everybody's character right and having it be funny make sense and be romantic it's creating a puzzle. Yes having been a writer for so long I have an awareness of when things are going awry but it doesn't mean I know how to fix them.

I think it's so funny when people think they can't control a movie star. They can. We're just women you know.

I think it's actually a misperception that I am a comedic actress. I do more drama than comedy but very little of it has been seen. When you are in big funny movies and they do well and your little part in it kind of explodes people perceive you as a comedian.

I really love 'Soapdish.' I wish 'Soapdish' had more of a moment because I felt that that is a really strong funny movie. Kevin Kline is hilarious in that movie.

I'm not a movie guy I'm not a TV sitcom guy but whatever seems to fit and is funny is good for me.

Back in the '70s like one of my favorite movies ever was 'The Bad News Bears' and that was a kids' movie but I don't think of it that way. I think of it as just a great movie because Walter Matthau was so funny and so harsh with those kids.

It's a required part of your film history to know who Woody is. His movies are so wonderful and not just funny but so insightful about human behavior.

To me what separates a funny movie from a good movie is something personal.

For some reason and I don't know why but I don't think that I'm funny in California. So I always want to do my movies east somewhere.

I had seen movies before that that had made me laugh but I had never seen anything even remotely close to as funny as Richard Pryor was just standing there talking.

What I don't like is when I see stuff that I know has had a lot of improv done or is playing around where there's no purpose to the scene other than to just be funny. What you don't want is funny scene funny scene funny scene and now here's the epiphany scene and then the movie's over.

When I first envisioned 'Funny Games' in the mid-1990s it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema its violence its naivety the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films violence is made consumable.

But I think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang really got that thing where if a movie reads really funny and then has some dramatic or violent or sinister stuff in it you can't forget that primarily it has to be even funnier than you read it or that other stuff doesn't work.

Europe is scooters. Europe is five young people on one bench sharing a chocolate bar. Their idea of entertainment and fun is so much different than ours which is exactly why a movie about them would be funny.

Movies these days have made killers into funny people. What's that all about? I've got kids and family and friends and I don't like bad things. I don't think they're funny and it's irresponsible to make movies that don't show you how that's not good.

No writing musicals is the hardest thing in the world. And it was really funny because I remember when the South Park movie came out there were some critics that said 'Well it's obvious that in order to get it to be 90 minutes they filled some time with music.'

People used to be funny about approaching me but now they seem to think I'm as sane as anyone who's done what I've done in movies can be.

At the end of the day it's got to be a good movie it's got to be a funny movie and it's got to make people think 'Hey I couldn't have spent my time any better.'