It's not about the script: it's about who the director is and who the other people in the cast are. Because you can look at a great script and execute it in a very sophomoric way, and you can look at an OK script, and you can execute it in a very sophisticated way and come out with something really good.
— Jason Bateman
Ideally, that's what you've got in an acting career is an equal number of dramas and comedies and an equal number of small films and big films.
I think things that are really, really not good are easy to see. But films that are decent can either be made good or great based on the execution. At the end of the day, it's always a crapshoot about the execution, the level of taste, in any department.
There are worse things than being constantly hired to do anything.
There's a bunch of different flavours of funny. It's all about the execution of it.
I wanted to be Dustin Hoffman or Robert De Niro or Al Pacino. I thought I was going to be a dramatic actor, but comedy sort of started out first, and I was like, 'Maybe I'll find some more drama later on in my career.'
Television is much more of a producer's writer's medium, so a lot of the time, when you're directing a television show, they have a color palette on set or a visual style and dynamic that's already been predetermined, and you just kind of have to follow the rules.
I'd much rather have the freedom, and the obligation to use it responsibly, than be put in a box.
People like Bill Murray are incredible at what they do and are definitely my flavour. Although Will Ferrell, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ricky Gervais are also incredible actors. In their comedy, they make these stupid people feel so real. These guys are really setting the bar very high, and I learn as much from them about acting as I do about comedy.
I just think technology is pretty amazing. Like all things that are great, you have to be responsible about how much you use it.
If it's a good part in a good movie, I'll do it.
If you're stumbling out of a bar, and people tweet about it, well, don't be dumb. If you're going to get falling-down drunk, stay at home - which I did a lot of.
Acting has always been very comfortable for me, so it allows me to pay attention to other parts of the process literally while I'm acting.
Kids want you to take them to whatever kid movie is opening, and you just hope it's good because you're going to buy a ticket, no matter what. If it's no good, you kind of drape your arm over your kid so they don't get smashed, and you take a little nap.
I looked around at the relationships that were the longest in my life, and they were the ones I had with my friends. I thought, 'If I only wanted to get married once, I should probably marry a friend.'
I was never at a place where rehab would have been appropriate.
My sense of humor lies a little closer to the middle.
People say: 'Why do you want to play the straight man?' Well, it's because he gets to be in every scene.
Nothing would make me happier than doing nothing but drama for the foreseeable future.
I'm not that great of an actor, so I can't, like, completely become somebody else.
I didn't really watch 'Beavis & Butt-head' that much or 'King of the Hill,' but I was a huge 'Office Space' fan.
If you laugh, we just do another take. Laughter is too rare nowadays. If you can bust a gut, let it go, and we'll just go back to one.
I did a good bit of episodic television directing, but directing a movie is so much more complicated.
My mother is British; she's from Shrewsbury. She turned me onto 'Monty Python' very early.
Our kids will never have to remember things, because it's all in pictures. Want to remember your fourth birthday? There'll be video of it on your phone.
It's very difficult to pretend you're throwing a car.
As disciplined as I am, I'm also a huge hedonist.
I've been fortunate, but I'm also not very precious about making sure I'm the star of a film.
I don't feel sorry for people in the public eye getting eyed by the public.
Acting in something that I'm directing... I'm really enjoying it because, if for no other reason, that particular acting is like reading my mind on every single take. It's kind of efficient, for better or worse.
I feel incredibly fortunate I walked away, took care of other business, and then came back to show business.
My father was a freelance writer/director/producer, and my mother was a stewardess for Pan-Am. It was very non-traditional.
Our job as actors is to just try to be as accurate and as mindful of what the audience is going through and receiving and processing.
The comedy community is very friendly right now. I think that's why you see all the synergy and people doing each other's movies.
Meeting my wife Amanda was the best thing that could ever have happened to me. She wasn't going to let me screw around my life anymore, so I stopped drinking and started behaving like a decent human being.
I can't assume that my kid is going to make the best decision all the time.
I try to figure out how much of the character I can find in myself because you don't want to get outside of your skill-set.
I'm just going to try to stay employed. That's the tough part in this business.
I like to give my daughter some rope and let her make her own decisions.
I'm not a big, huge star, and so when people see me, it's usually to talk about something I've done, and that's a great conversation to have. That's what we're doing it for.
It's not new: In the '70s, Archie Bunker said terrible things on 'All in the Family,' but it was all in Carroll O'Connor's performance. You saw lack of intelligence, and you laughed.
I think it's always a good time to be in a political film in America because there's so much material for comedy.
I guess there's nothing funny about a guy who looks conservative and has it all together, but it's satisfying to see a conservative guy crumbling inside, and I think a lot of American comedy has cottoned on to that.
It's not a sprinter's approach. It's more like a long-distance thing. You can stick around a lot longer if you kind of slow-play it.
It earns you a lot of snark if you're able to convey vulnerability.
People still come up to me and say, 'Hey, 'Teen Wolf!' 'Teen Wolf Too' closed a week after it opened. Where did they see it?
The directing is something that is incredibly satisfying to me and challenging to me because it's asking me to draw on everything I've been able to absorb over all these years of acting and having all this set experience.
I wanted to marry somebody who wasn't someone I had to be in any particular mood to want to be around - with close friends, you can be with them no matter what mood you're in.
Do you want to continue being great at being in your twenties, or do you want to step up and graduate into adulthood?
It was like 'Risky Business' for 10 years. My parents were out of town, they left me a bunch of money, the car, and the house, and I didn't know when they were coming home.
