I've been in, like, kids' clubs... I've been in the Boom Boom Room in New York, and the kids are going, 'Oh my God, you produced 'Arrested Development?'' They aren't talking about 'A Beautiful Mind' or '24.' It's like the only thing in my whole career was 'Arrested Development,' literally.
It's a simple quality of human nature that people prefer to choose to do things rather than be ordered to do them. In fact, as soon as you tell me I have to do something - give a speech, attend a banquet, go to Cannes - I immediately start looking for ways to avoid doing it.
You should not do everything in your power to make reviewers cranky before - right before they see your movie.
I like challenges; I like excitement. I like entering different worlds and trying to succeed - not excel, but succeed.
The physical effort of reading drains some of the pleasure I might take from whatever I'm reading.
I think that we all absolutely have curiosity. It brings about knowledge. It's energizing. It's spiritually empowering. It makes us more interesting as people.
My world was small growing up. I never really left the three-mile radius of my tiny neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.
The hair is part of my image, part of my persona. And the hair is no accident: I have to gel it vertical every single morning.
Everybody in Hollywood has to beat the 'no' - and if you write code in Silicon Valley, or if you design cars in Detroit, if you manage hedge funds in Lower Manhattan, you also have to learn to beat the 'no.'
In Hollywood, people tend to have the same sensibilities, the same taste and values, and I didn't want to spend my life that way. I wanted to have a bigger, more interesting life.
Artists, whether they're Tom Cruise or John Waters or Ron Howard or Oliver Stone, you can empower them to become a better version of themselves, but you cannot change them 180 degrees to be someone they are not.
Being interested in other fields and meeting experts outside entertainment - whether it's a two-hour conversation with John Nash that turns into 'A Beautiful Mind' or talking to people in architecture or fashion, CIA directors or Nobel laureates - has given me a better sense of which ideas feel authentic and new.
By having a little bit of knowledge about many different things, it enables me to talk to people about a subject that they would not ordinarily think I could talk about. It's a lever for me, I suppose.
The Porsche was just a vehicle to get to another place. I used it to change people's perceptions of me. I had grown up really middle class. USC was filled with elitists, richies who would go skiing every weekend. So I pretended like I was part of that world - to be accepted.
You have to trust yourself, not research. Not testing. Testing helps, but you have to trust your own taste. If your taste says something isn't any good, don't let research rationalize that out of its own truth.
I worked for a couple of screamers in my early days in Hollywood. I don't like being screamed at, and I am not myself a screamer.
There is evidence that people do want to watch shows back to back - that's why DVR use is so high. When you're able to DVR something, people will watch more than one episode.
I probably should have a brand, but I think you can't get the best artists to work for you if you're branded. I get the trade-off, and I really would like to be more famous for my work, get more credit for my achievements.
I started in TV movies and then had success in my move to features with 'Night Shift' and 'Splash'.
I went to USC. I wasn't a rich kid or anything like that, so I had to get a scholarship. Went to USC; my first year, I took 26 units, so I got to have a nickname. Everyone goes, 'There's 26.' So I had a nickname. Having a nickname is a good thing because then you start to get popular, and you keep that going.
