MAKE COMEDIES

“College Dropout came out before I was famous, okay? I had probably was the biggest Kanye fan is, was, whatever you want to say of his art of anyone in the world. If you want to talk about surreal, Kanye West went on a Jew-hating tour, and then Instagrammed that I'm the reason he actually loves Jews. If you want to say something is too big to be real, that is an example of it. The whole thing is completely from outer space.”

“I used to have a list of like positive actions at my time where I was trying to change my mindset the most. I had two whiteboards in my kitchen. One said gratitude list it was 10 things and one was positive actions. So one positive action could be calling mom. It was great to see that I had done 10 nice things for other people by the end of the day. So catching the negative thought changing the channel and going to get on your feet and do something for somebody else.”

“The one funny anecdote I will say about that though part is is that cuz the character does have anxiety which I've, you know, had in my life. Keanu did not understand what or how to portray anxiety. He hadn't felt it in a sense that he understood. And every conversation with him was great cuz I'd go like, 'Well, you know, why is he like freaking out, you know, about what like someone you know?' And he's like, 'This person really would do this?' And I'd go, 'Yeah.'”

“Tell me something you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young. I didn't believe that happiness was just like calm and contentness. I believed that it was exciting and at like a fever pitch and at 100 miles per hour. And as an adult, I believe fun to be at a turtle's pace.”

“No social media for the past four or five years and really limited internet. I cringe when I think about when I was on social media as far as I what I posted and the amount of gratification I wanted. And I cringe as that of almost middle-aged man I was posting like fit pics of myself like in outfits or whatever for validation. So much of the bad parts of creativity are when you're trying to keep up with the Joneses. And when I left social media I stopped thinking Outcome is in a movie where you're like what are they doing? I should be doing Outcome. Outcome's what you make when you're you just think what should I be making?”

“So I'm 16 years old. I sneak into the Man on the Moon premiere with my buddy Mark and we're in the back trying to wait for someone to open the exit door so we can go in through the back. And a limo pulls up and it's Rodney in a suit with no shoes or socks on and his wife, who's incredible, and a six-pack of Mickey's bombers and I'm like, 'Rodney, you're my favorite man. Like you're the king. You're the king.' And he's like, 'Oh, wait.' And it was my birthday. And so he was like, 'What are you doing?' I'm like, 'We're trying to sneak in.' He's like, 'I'll sneak you guys in.' He gives us both of us one of his Mickey's grenades and he sneaks us into the Man on the Moon premiere.”

“First thing Phil Stutz said to me was, 'You're not a good artist cuz you're messed up. You're a good artist in spite of being messed up.' And so, yeah, I think I know artists that self-sabotage is a big part of their process, but like Stutz said, I think if they were healthy and still doing their process, it'd be great cuz they're great.”

“I felt the reason for making it was as simple as this. This is what I told Netflix when I pitched it. I want to make a movie about the tools, right? So if you're a kid that doesn't have a lot of money and your parents let's say won't let you do therapy and it's stigmatized or you need to watch it in private or you can't afford to go get If you have a Netflix account or access to one, you can privately watch this movie that will give you therapeutic tools to help your life. And then the full circle to that was I went surfing in El Salvador and all the kids were yelling Stutz at me. And my friend had translated it was cuz they had all loved Stutz and they had all watched him. They were like 10, 11 years old.”

“Marty is like when I say what I've most I've ever learned from Marty is he's my hero and lucky to get to ask him questions like I get to ask you questions etc. He creates this space where the plumbing is so intact, where the infrastructure is so intact that when you walk onto the stage you can do anything. And it is supporting what the actor wants to do. And will creatively, if they want to take it to a place is still with it, he will guide you within the movie itself. So, I've never felt such freedom and then sort of like just rigidity.”

“The real reason is they aren't making money like they used to. So, like, the real truth of it is is that when I came up with Judd and everybody and Seth, our movies made a lot of money. You knew your your comedy probably going to open at $20 if like Judd's name was on it or I was in it or Seth was in it. Right now is the perfect time to be making comedies. And at Strong Baby, we want to make funny movies. We want to make responsibly budgeted funny movies because 14-year-olds have nothing to laugh at, as does everybody else.”

“Test screenings are incredible. So usually I test five weeks into a director's cut, which is in the film's infancy. So five weeks into my director's cut, I test in front of a test screening to get ahead of what my headline problems are. For comedy, it's the best. It's like off with their heads. It's like the joke gets a laugh or it doesn't. Well, you know what? You haven't set it up properly. You haven't set the table for them to laugh. So it's almost always in the setup.”

“Do you know the famous Albert Brooks story? With Rob Reiner, may he rest in peace, where Rob told me this story that Albert killed so hard at a party one time in the '70s. They were all at a social event party and Albert just killed from the jump. And he's like he leaves like right away. He's like he leaves and then the phone rings and then they're like someone for Rob like Rob, it's for you. And it was Albert and he's like, 'I left my keys up there. You got to bring them out to me.' And he's like he's like, 'Come back and get them.' He's like, 'I just killed so hard. I had to get out of there. There's no way I'm going back in there.'”