To me, comedy is drama.

[re Take the Money and Run (1969)] I had never seen comedy like that. It was subversive and smart, and yet so silly at the same time. I wanted to be an actor at that point in my life [9 years old] and when I realized that [Woody] Allen wrote and directed and starred in this film, that really kind of set the course for what I thought my life was going to be.

The mockumentary is a perfect form for comedy, because it allows it to be behavioral and real and feel in the moment. Since things are supposed to be happening in the real world and captured in the moment by handheld cameras that are surprised by the unexpected actions of the characters, it allows you to create looser situations that play funnier if they're done right. I've used this form on The Office (2005) and Arrested Development (2003), and the tone is great. Plus it allows you to work with no budget.

When I was an actor, I was in this horrendous movie called Ski Patrol (1990). And I have so many young people come up to me and say it's their favorite movie. I guess it just depends when you watched it and what your relationship was to it at the age you saw it. Time seems to be the great equalizer.

I think TV is better than movies these days. It has finally embraced serializations, so basically what you are getting is a never-ending movie on television. I am obsessed with trying to figure out what's a great serialized comedy, and how to do it.

When I was a kid, I used to hate watching kids on TV who were smart or snappy. I liked watching adults being stupid. That's why I liked Monty Python, because these were adults acting insane, whereas when a kid came on, hey, he knew everything, and I was like, 'I don't wanna see that, because I don't know everything, and I don't wanna see a kid who's more together than me.'

The director is the only person on the set who has seen the film. Your job as a director is to show up every day and know where everything will fit into the film.

What's great about the geek spirit is that life never seems to stop us, and they never seem to kill our enthusiasm, our optimism and our hunger to experience the world. We keep our sense of humor, we protect our dignity, we talk to our friends about the experience and then we start again fresh the very next day.

At the end of the day the question comes, what are you doing for the world? You have to try to do something that's going to add something positive.

Every director should take an acting class.