What's interesting about Laurel and Hardy is that in most comedy teams, there's a straight man, and then there's the funny guy. And with Laurel and Hardy, they're both the funny guy.

I went to Bard College for a year. And then, even though I didn't think I should give my blood to the theater, I did go to N.Y.U., which is where I met Michael McKean.

You know when you're young, you have this unbelievable stupidity and arrogance and ignorance all mixed in?

It's dangerous talking about comedy; it gets to be very tedious and presumptuous.

In 'Waiting for Guffman,' the character I played, the Corky character, he's very serious about what he does, and it's not meant to be mean that this is a small town and these people aren't the most talented people. They're trying the best they can. So to be mean, that would be kind of horrifying in its superficiality.

'The Office' is an amazing show. So is 'Extras.'

Strangely enough, among my dad's things, I found the diary of an ancestor who was born in 1797 and became a ventriloquist in London. That was quite chilling. It described exactly how I was as a child but 150 years earlier - doing voices, pretending to be a ventriloquist.

I am interested in the notion that people can become so obsessed by their world that they lose sense and awareness of how they appear to other people. They're so earnest about it. But that's true of so many things.

Folk musicians have a lot of the same self-importance, but they're way more cruel and jealous than rock musicians - I know this for a fact because I used to be a folk musician.

In real life, people fumble their words. They repeat themselves and stare blankly off into space and don't listen properly to what other people are saying. I find that kind of speech fascinating but screenwriters never write dialogue like that because it doesn't look good on the page.

I spent a lot of time in London when I was growing up and I've always picked up accents without even really meaning to. It used to get me into trouble as a child.

I spent more time in America, but I developed a very English sense of humour. I clicked into it deeply with Peter Sellers, who is still probably my favourite comedian.

You know it's important to have a Jeep in Los Angeles. That front wheel drive is crucial when it starts to snow on Rodeo Drive.

I'm married to the person I fell in love with.

I painted sets before I ever performed.

I rarely joke unless I'm in front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living.

People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case.

Comedy is like music. You have to know the key and you have to find players with good chops.

The movies have a way of seeping out there over time. We don't put them in 2,000 theaters. It wouldn't work that way.

Peter Sellers is my great comedy hero.

It's infrequent that that happens - great performances and magical cinematography and great direction.

They sell these golf aids that attach to your knee and your head and are supposed to keep your swing correct. It's futile beyond belief. I've never bought any, but I could watch those ads for 24 hours straight. People with straight faces saying this thing will take strokes off your game - that's my peculiar obsession.

Many times I'll improvise it, which isn't done a lot in movies or commercials. But a lot of my commercials are improvised.

I'm not really premeditative in any way at all. I come up with an idea, hopefully for a film, and then I'm lucky enough to do the film.

You can pick almost any field, and there's going to be weird people.

Comedies don't get nominated for Oscars. It doesn't happen. So when we set out to do a movie, it's not what we're thinking about.

The minute the money is more, you lose your control, so then there's no point.

The early parodies that talk-show people did of rock n' roll in the '50s were terrible. They didn't know it, they didn't like it - and that's a lethal combination.

In 'Spinal Tap,' there's the fake historical quality of 'Stonehenge.' It's something the musicians look at with a mystical reverence. In folk music, it's the seriousness with which these people approach their 'art.'

People who take themselves too seriously, who can't see anything else, are usually funny.

I get asked, 'Who would you really like to work with?' I'm already working with them. Smart, talented, funny people, good musicians, an extended family, good friends.

All these movies are observational comedies. I see somebody, maybe a dry cleaner, and notice how they are. Maybe I'll decide to turn a person with those traits into a studio chief.

I don't know if I'd mastered that documentary format, but I wanted to move on from it.

Most films, when you finish as an actor, you just go home.

The reason I work with the same people, it's not just an accident.

Ninety-nine percent of television shows, I've never seen.

I watch mostly documentaries and things that aren't remotely funny.

I read kind of serious books about fairly arcane subjects.

People ask me, 'What's your next film?' And I never know.

I've been buying guitars since 1964, and you fool yourself into thinking it's the last one.

I'm fascinated by real-time behavior.

When you hear someone talking in a restaurant or overhear someone talking on the street, there are very different patterns of conversation than you would hear in a conventional movie.

I've been fortunate. I get to write films. I get to write music in films. I get to play arenas wearing a wig.

I started on the clarinet. I was going to a music school - my mother took me - and the guy said, 'What do you want to play?' I said the drums, and my mother said, 'No, you don't. You don't want to play the drums.' So I said, 'Maybe the trumpet would be cool.' And my mother said, 'I don't think so.' And then the clarinet was handed to me.

It couldn't have been more nerdy or bizarre, playing the clarinet. But I studied classical clarinet, went to the high school for music and art in New York City, and then found the guitar and the mandolin after it.

When you've been a character in a movie - and this has happened when we've done concerts as Spinal Tap or as The Folksmen - people see you as characters walking out of a movie. And you appear in public, then, to play, it's a very schizophrenic thing.

I don't read anything about my movies before or after I do films, or any part of show business. I think that keeps me in a kind of place where I can do the work that I need to do.

I wouldn't say I'm a connoisseur of film. I like certain films, but I don't pretend to be a connoisseur of films, no.

My passion is more specific, in the sense that I've always liked doing comedy. I've always liked doing music. I like acting. And apparently, you need those things in movies.

I don't think we've ever known what the hell's going on when we do Tap shows. It's possible the audience are effectively getting to see more of the movie when we play. You know, they know the songs, so anything we do onstage, whether we're meaning to or not, is an extension of the film. Other than that, I wouldn't understand what's going on.