I can't stand toe-to-toe with Bill Murray. It's very hard, because just looking at Bill - he's 6'3", and he just stares at you, and you have no idea what's going on inside that mind of his.
By the time I got to 'St Vincent,' I had shot so many scenarios I was ready for anything - I've shot kangaroos, I've shot dogs, cats, crowds, fight scenes, stunts, comedy, drama, handheld, dolly, helicopter, crane - I just felt that there was nothing I was unprepared for.
After a tumultuous 20-year marriage, my father up and left one day, leaving my mother to raise three boys without the means to do so. And yet somehow she did. At the age of 50, she enrolled in nursing school and became a nurse and worked countless overtime hours and weekend shifts just to give us a fighting chance.
If you don't infuse humor into a subject matter, no matter how dark, the audience can't accept the message of a film. It closes them down. Humor can open them up.
You know what the truth is? You don't find Bill Murray. Bill Murray finds you.
