Jim Carrey is a consummate actor and professional. He comes on set, knows his lines and knows his moves.

Ron Howard is as good a person as you could want to work with on film. He never lost his cool. He's the most easygoing, lovely man, but he's got this enormous intelligence and a wonderful humanity.

Mike Nichols asked if I would do The Birdcage. Mike and I are dear friends but he had never offered me a feature role in a movie. My television career opened other doors for me.

In the early '90s, New York was a pretty depressing place.

A transposable aphorism is a malaise of the urge to be witty, or in other words, a maxim that is untroubled by the fact that the opposite of what it says is equally true so long as it appears to be funny.

I started comedy as a hobby, really, and it still doesn't seem like a proper job.

I was in musical comedy. And I did very well, but the memorization killed me. I'm not good at memorizing, and it gave me a lot of anxiety. I hated the makeup. I hated all that pancake makeup. I didn't really like dressing for parts.

He has such a patronizing tone and manner, and such a sarcastic sense of humor. I found him rather brutal, a kind of elegant brutality which appealed. No, I think he came pretty much off the page.