I'm the only one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that has Final Draft on my computer. Then you show up and go to any coffee shop in L.A., and there are a hundred people your age with Final Draft.
Bill Hader
When you're at your absolute, most exhausted... That's when you have to be at the top of your game.
I really enjoyed playing Vinny Vedecci, the Italian talk show host. He was the first character I ever came up with where I gave him a name and a way of dressing.
When you're performing, you're playing to the back row. With acting, you have to be more nuanced.
I tried to get people at 'South Park' into 'Downton Abbey,' and it didn't work. I think they were like, 'Downton Abbey?' What?' And I kinda made a big plea in the writer's room, like, 'Guys, you should really watch it. It's good. It's addicting. My wife and I are obsessed with it.'
I don't think I could do what Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood or Ben Stiller do, where they direct a movie and they star in it. I would just be like, 'Oh, I don't even want to look at my face.'
I worked at a movie theater in Tempe, Arizona, when I went to community college there. And I got fired because a sorority had rented out a theater to watch 'Titanic,' and they were being really rude to me while they were waiting for the movie. So as I tore their tickets, I told them the end of the movie.
I don't believe in the term 'guilty pleasure,' because it implies I should feel ashamed for liking something. A real guilty pleasure would be, I don't know, taking gratification in some stranger's ghastly death or something - which I guess I do enjoy, because I read a ton of true crime.
I remember being unbelievable bummed when 'Freaks and Geeks' was canceled.
A person being patient with an insane person is my favorite thing in the world.
I got invited to the Playboy Mansion with the Lonely Island guys after their first season on 'SNL,' and I sat in the corner drinking coffee and talking to Akiva Schaffer about what aspect ratio he was going to shoot 'Hot Rod' in. Like, that's what we talk about.
I met Robin Williams a few times, and he was a beautiful guy.
My wife and I got to go onstage at a Flaming Lips concert at Webster Hall once. We dressed up like Scientology aliens and danced around. We had a shootout onstage with Santa Claus.
My wife and I were on our honeymoon in Turks and Caicos, in the middle of nowhere, and I'm sitting on this deserted beach, and I see one lone person walking along the shore. He walks right up to me and says, 'I love 'Laser Cats,' and then just walks away.
David Sedaris is so good that it makes me mad.
My first real job, I sold Christmas trees when I was twelve for extra money. I did that until I was fifteen. Then I bagged groceries, and I worked at the first Borders ever in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
My mom, dad, grandparents, we all do voices.
It doesn't occur to me that I don't drive a cool car until I hang out with Jon Hamm, who picks me up in what looks like a Transformer, and I think, 'Oh, that's what movie stars are driving. I guess I'm not a movie star.'
I wrote a fan e-mail to Michael Chabon.
Pete Davidson - he's in the movie 'Trainwreck.' He has a small part in it. I told Lorne Michaels about him, said he was really funny.
When people tell you what doesn't work, they're usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, they're usually wrong.
My parents were supportive. I didn't have good grades, but they could tell I wasn't lazy.
'SNL' is really hard to do when you're single and living alone. And then it's pretty tough when you're married, because you don't see your spouse.
I get migraines a lot. I get them when I'm stressed out. My brain freezes, and I just try to get through that.
I think that's the thing I learned at 'Saturday Night Live' - any time I would try and strategize, I would always, always fall on my face. Things worked out when I tried to make it about what I was feeling at that moment and what I was into in that moment of my life.
My dad was a big Frank Zappa fan, so I remember listening to a lot of Frank Zappa. Girls do not like Frank Zappa.
If you can't forgive yourself, you think you're never going to be able to forgive yourself, and you repeat the same behavior.
Las Vegas, New Mexico has had a lot of great movies shot there.
I like doing a lot of research, and then you get there, you're in wardrobe, and then you're just reacting to what the other person is doing. The other actor is reacting to what you're doing, and it's this great back and forth. Because you've done all this research, you can use some of it or throw a lot of it out. You can get lost in it.
Jason Sudeikis is always chewing gum.
Every relationship is work.
'Vanity Fair' did this grid thing a couple years ago, connecting people who've worked together, and I had the most branches on it or whatever, because I'd worked with so-and-so and so-and-so worked with so-and-so, and I was kind of in the middle.
You can be the lead in a movie just for the sake of being a lead in a movie, or you can just be in a good movie.
People ask me, 'Did you always want to be on SNL?' No, actually, it never crossed my mind. It didn't even seem possible. It would've been like saying, 'Hey, do you wanna go to the moon?'
Seth Meyers and I wrote a 'Spider-Man' comic.
Voices are a good way to get in and out of things. James Carville constantly calls my wife to say I'll be home late. Mandy Patinkin and Al Pacino call to get me restaurant reservations.
Top Ten lists make me insane. I just know they're going to change daily.
Getting 'SNL' was pretty amazing, so just to be able to have an eight-year career there and be really happy with everything I did, it was pretty big.
Let's face it: I look pretty out of shape.
When it comes to comedy, it might be interesting to know why an airplane works, but really? Maybe it's better not to know why certain things work. Just fly the thing, and if nothing falls apart, you'll be fine.
I have a lot of incomplete short films and incomplete scripts out there.
The first time I met James Franco, he was dressed like James Dean. He was James Dean, literally, filming a biopic.
I'm crazy lucky. I was trying to be a filmmaker. I was doing Second City classes as a way to be creative. I was a PA for a long time. I was working as an assistant editor on 'Iron Chef America' when I got 'SNL.' It was one of those situations where you're concentrating in one thing and the peripheral thing popped.
When I was on 'SNL,' I was getting weirdly anxious about being on camera, which I had never really done before. And so my solution was just to not watch my stuff. And then I found out that other actors do it, too, and I felt less weird about it.
I took Second City out of desperation, and that's what ended up working out. It shows that you should be doing a lot of different stuff, taking whatever opportunities are there, to see what works.
The nature of 'SNL' is that it's so in-the-moment.
I hated pitch meetings. Pitch meetings were my least favorite part of the week. I just gave up. I was so terrible at them.
George Saunders is a complete genius.
When you move to L.A. or New York, it's easy to get a little lost and forget your original goal.
To be totally honest? I don't know if I'll keep doing more impressions. People told me I had a facility for it, and I was like, 'Okay, I'm the impression guy.' So you imagine the cast at 'SNL' is an A-Team, and you've got the explosives guy, and I'm the impression guy.
