I Think That Peter Jennings Is The

A Pitfall Of Making A Comedy With A Studio-and It's Also An American Cultural Thing-is That I Get Tired Of Being Encouraged To Go Always For Laughs.

I Always Think About Visual Comedy. I Was Raised Watching Silents, And I'm Always Thinking About How To Make Cinema, Not Good Talking - Although I Want Good Talking. I'm Much More Interested In Framing, Composition, And Orchestration Of Bodies In Space, And So Forth. My Goal Is Always What Chuck Jones Wanted His Warner Brothers Cartoons To Be, Which Was If You Turn Down The Sound, You Could Still Tell What's Going On.

I Could Never Be A Part Of An Adaptation Of A Film Where There's Pressure To Not Disappoint The Immense Fan Base. In Those Cases, They Often Wind Up With Filmed Books On Tape, Quite Uncinematic. Having Said That, I'd Say All The Adaptations I've Done Are Quite Faithful To The Original... You Have To Pick And Choose Which Storylines And Plot Threads, Because You Don't Have The Time To Kill In The Film As They Have In Novels. All Those Pages With Detours And Plots And Different Storylines. But Films Add A Lot, And You Gotta Keep It Moving.

I'm Attracted To Short Screenplays. Nobody Really Wants A Film To Be Over Two Hours, Or At Least I Don't.

I Still Have Energy And Some Degree Of Youth, Which Is What A Filmmaker Needs.