If you're sitting in that audience ready to fight me from the very beginning, I'm going to have a hard time getting to you. But if you've got a heart at all, I'm going to get it.
I have to understand how we are going to market the movie. We view marketing as an extension of content creation... Every time a consumer sees our movie, in whatever form, our obligation is to entertain the audience.
Pretty much every time I try something different or do something in front of a live audience, I truly think they might throw peanuts at me.
I have a theory. An audience doesn't need to get wrapped up in blackness every time they see a Negro actor. And a movie doesn't have to be about race just because there's a Negro in it.
In terms of the pilot, you have to introduce a lot of characters in a very short period of time, and you have to paint with slightly broad brush strokes because you just need to give an audience an idea of who these people might be.
Dame Edna is that rarest sighting in our time of the absolute comic, an inspired personification of caprice whose comedy answered the primal call to take the audience for a tumble.
For my part, if the audience wanted to see Dracula again, I would be happy to reprise the role. It is an immortal character that can appear anywhere because it lies beyond time. Possibilities are endless.
The first time I read something, I have this special feeling of being fully engaged with it. It's fresh to the audience because it's fresh to me. It's a little mystical, but I really believe that.
You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it.
Minister: [addressing the audience] But enough of words, actions speak louder than. Action now. Observe all.
[first lines] woman in audience: It's her. I know it's her! She wants to tell us something.
George Shapiro: Andy, you have to look inside and ask this question: who are you trying to entertain - the audience or yourself?
Girl in audience: [about Lina] She's so refined. I think I'll kill myself.
Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.
25, 30 years ago, that meant something, they were making some money. And they were doing all sorts of comedy, screaming at the audience, basically crowd control. And then there was the whole urban comedy scene.
Those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences - they are not. Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.
I think people who make movies and have invested a lot of money in them get frightened that if they challenge an audience they are going to repel them. And I think the opposite; it's really true.
Wet Hot American Summer so far is a financial disappointment and money was lost on it. But perhaps it will find its audience in video, cable, etc, maybe over the course of years.
I enjoy being on CNBC's 'Fast Money,' in part so that audiences can watch a woman who is as well informed about, and invested in, the market as her male counterparts.
There are many movies that have done it very badly. The studios have gone for quick profits and audiences are feeling angry. People aren't taking the time and spending the money to do it right. I am.
I want to lift the audience to the miraculous in human nature. After all, we shouldn't be here, with all the odds against us in nature. It's kind of unusual and wonderful!
