When guys see a movie starring women, they go, “That must be filled with these characters I see in these movies who are such a drag.” And that’s just bad for everybody.
You can never have a thousand percent batting average on jokes – it’s just never going to happen.
Whatever you wear, you have to own it. Make it yours.
I really feed off of The Walking Dead.
Katie Dippold, who I wrote the script with, she’s very into ghosts and all that. So I go, “Hey, why don’t you talk to Katie?”
Wearing a tuxedo isn’t as simple as it sounds. I’ve been to a lot of award shows in Hollywood over the years and have seen some pretty sad tuxes. It’s surprisingly easy to go off the rails.
Why is a movie starring women considered a gimmick and a movie starring men is just a normal movie?
Everyone takes pause at 40. It’s the age you have to assess everything in your life. It’s the fictitious marker that’s always coming up when you’re young. The world really does look at you to kind of have it together by 40, and be successful by 40. Whatever success means.
One of the many things I want to do is dig us out of that hole so that guys, in particular, can go: “Oh, yeah. Those people are really funny. I’ve seen that person. It’s a woman. They are funny.”
Whatever makes you laugh is fine, and all we can do as comedy professionals is try to steer you towards something that we think is a little better – but not put you down or just perplex you in the process.
I love funny people, and when I’m with funny people, or people who are amusing in their weirdness, I love it. Because that to me is funny, as opposed to someone who stops and says, ‘Hey let me tell you a joke.’
I’m extremely, extremely lucky to be who I am and do what I do and work with the people I work with. Even though I can always find something to complain about, I find it very hard to complain.
Women’s humor seems to be a little more supportive. It’s just kind of trying to make the other one laugh through funny voices and kind of talking about other people. I respond to that. I feel less like I’m going to get beat up in a room full of women than I do in a room full of guys.
What’s so great about working with really funny women is that vanity comes second. Whatever makes it real and funny, they’re going to go for, and it’s just great.
What you never want to do is have a story that doesn’t track emotionally, because then you’re going joke to joke and you’re going to fatigue the audience. The only thing that’s going to string them to the next joke is how successful the previous joke is.
What I do as a director is really create a safe environment that everyone can feel very comfortable in and experiment within so that they don’t hold back anything. You never ever want someone to go, ‘Oh I shouldn’t have done that.’ There isn’t anything you shouldn’t try. If it’s terrible, who cares?
I’m more of a science head, so I was like how would a guy use – if there were ghosts – technology to bring them back?
I don’t want to do anything to revisit Freaks and Geeks that isn’t awesome.
I hate that we’re always called “the all-female Ghostbusters,” because you wouldn’t refer to the original as “the all-male Ghostbusters.”
I’m not looking for people to bow down to me or do things in my name or even pass around a collection plate for me. I say that I’d like to be God for a while because He really can get away with anything. I mean, ANYTHING.