It's a beacon of hope in a dark world. You watch 'The Muppets' and you're smiling for an hour and a half, and then you go outside, and the economy is in crisis.
James Bobin
You always want to aim high.
I've always liked the Muppets. I watched 'The Muppet Show' in England every week as a child. The show was originally broadcast in England.
No, the Muppets are not communist. And the character of Tex Richman is not an allegory for capitalism in any way. The character is called Tex Richman.
The joy of puppetry is that it is very simple and low-fi, which I love.
'Muppets' was very much an exercise in anti-CG and the anti-effects world. It was very much in camera. We wanted to create a world where tangible puppets walked around and talked to each other. You could touch them. You could meet them.
Personally, I've always liked movies about big diamonds, like 'Pink Panther' and 'The Thomas Crown Affair.' I've always found those films really interesting, and they have a good energy about them, which I like.
'Alice' is effectively a story about a game of cards. 'Through the Looking Glass' is a story of chess.
'Muppets' is incredibly analog, 'Alice' is very digital.
I think we live in an entertainment world where performers like to flaunt how great they are. The Conchords don't do that. Even when they stumble onstage, people like it.
Muppet films are never easy to film 'cause Muppets have no legs.
I remember watching 'The Muppet Show' in the '70s. I was six or seven, and my dad watched it with me, and my grandparents watched it with me, and we're all laughing throughout, but I think we were probably laughing at different things.
The Muppets are always really positive when they come across adversity, and they always have the ability to see the good in people.
'The Muppet Show' spoke to me at 5, and it speaks to me in my late 30s in the same way.
If you know people, it's so much more fun working with them because it's like your family is back together again.
'The Muppets' is really about innocence and charm and sweetness and light and having hope - and stupid gags.
In England, 'The Muppet Show' is very much seen as an English thing. So for us in the U.K., it is one of the treasures of the history of children's TV and of comedy, basically.
When you try to teach children things, you're trying not necessarily to do it directly.
I love the idea of exploring the Victorian imagination and what Victorians thought the world of fantasy would look like.
Lewis Carroll, you see, wasn't really interested in telling an exciting story. Well, he wasn't interested in things like cause and effect or a linear narrative. It's surreal, it's absurd, it's wordplay, it's satirical, it's analyzing itself, it's funny, it's an enormous challenge.
Cable news is 24 hours long, so you have to fill it up with something.
I worked on both 'Borat' and 'Bruno,' but in a very producer-y role.
I think, as a director, it's always worth pushing yourself and finding out new areas and exploring new ways to tell story.
I'd rather not ever make anything overly simple just because I'm scared people won't get it.
The thing about me is that my secret passion is history.
My films have a lot of historical context; I'm a huge fan of ruins. You see a lot of ruin work in my movies, I like ruins.
There's nothing sadder than being in a tribute band - especially a tribute band for your own thing you did originally.
I'm probably an overcompensating introvert. I live in Hollywood, but I don't go to parties where I have to work the room. I could do that, but I don't want to... I try and stay the same and live a fairly normal life.
Film shouldn't be a pain. It's a creative process.
I am a great believer that your humor is developed at a very early age, and it doesn't ever change. You're basically the same person forever, so you find the same stuff funny forever.
I've always loved 'Alice,' and I've always loved Lewis Carroll. I love his kind of tone and his intelligence.
I've always thought that Lewis Carroll himself had a certain comedy tinge to him. He was a guy who was a satirist. He really was a social commentator in many ways and was trying to satirize Victorian society.
As a director, obviously you should challenge yourself. It's important, because it's this thing that takes you away from your family for years. You have to really love the thing you're doing. It's very important.
Watching 'Dark Crystal' now, having made Muppet films, it really strikes me just how ambitious that film is in terms of the constructs, the builds, the puppeteering.
Everything in culture moves in a cyclical way.
