If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
In 'Space Dandy,' I'm trying to challenge myself and do stuff I haven't done before. I'm aiming for a really funny, cool, and crazy creation.
When you're in the editing room, the dangerous thing is that it becomes like telling a joke again and again and again. Eventually, the joke starts to not be funny. So you have to be careful that you're not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
My job on 'Dark Shadows' was to make it fun and funny, first and foremost. It can still be dark and it can still even be gory and gothic at times, but it also needed to be fun and it needed to be an experience that people would enjoy having.
With its missed lines and falling tombstones, 'Dark Shadows' was sometimes inadvertently funny, but what made the show work was the fact that the actors and the writers took it all very seriously.
When Jonathan Winters died, it was like, 'Oh, man!' I knew he was frail, but I always thought he was going to last longer. I knew him as being really funny, but at the same time, he had a dark side.
In 2003, my mom actually gave me a call, which is funny because she works at the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, and let me know that there's a cool competition with robots across the desert. And I thought this was definitely something I wanted to be a part of. This was the first DARPA Grand Challenge.
Phil Hartman was brilliant, and Dave Foley is a really funny guy. Phil Hartman was actually even funnier offstage than he was onstage because he would say nasty things. Dave Foley's very funny, very witty guy, very quick.
I think David Letterman is a genius. Night after night he is funny and smart. He seems to really enjoy his jokes. They seem connected to who he really is. I like watching him, and there is no one better at turning an awkward moment into something very funny.
David Lynch and I almost made a movie together in the late '80s. We had lots of dinners and lunches. He's a very cool, hip guy. This film, let's face it, is like an homage to him, I would imagine he'd find it funny.
I'm thankful enough or blessed enough to be able to say that Miles Davis was a friend when he was alive, and he was a wonderful mentor and really, really funny, you know.
The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
I think people were just seriously happy to find a funny woman who does comedy like a man. Because I learned how to do comedy from guys, from watching those Dean Martin roasts years ago.
I carry with me from my male upbringing a sense that femininity is forbidden. So when I appear on YouTube with forty butterflies glued to my body and glitter all over my face, I have a sense that I'm getting away with something I'm not supposed to. I'm being decadent. I'm enjoying a forbidden pleasure. And that's fun, and it's funny.
For people who have done comedy after a certain point in time, I think there's a base level of, 'O.K., I think I'm decently funny.' But unless you just have some massive ego, I really think you're still fighting against that.
The funny thing is that I feel close to all my characters. Deep, deep inside them all.
It's a funny thing, my relationship with Deep Purple. I already felt the pain and confusion of trying to replace Ritchie Blackmore, which is a difficult thing to have in your head - since the time when you were a kid, that guitar sound and approach is what you associate with Deep Purple.
In 'Sidney's Comet,' thanks to all the consumerism, all the garbage had to be put in deep space, even though we're not supposed to litter the cosmos - that was an environmental message. Although it was funny, it had an important message.
I tend to play characters that I can infuse with certain kinds of humour. Even the baddest guy can be funny in his own particular way. I want the audience to engage with the character on some deeper level so that they leave the cinema still thinking about him.
