For me, 'Jaws' is much more of an adventure movie, but when it's scary, it's terrifying. When it's funny, it's hilarious. When there's drama, it's the most sincere stuff on screen. When there's adventure, there's swashbuckle. It's all those things.
Especially with a comedy, you've got the clear cut goal of trying to make a scene funny. It's not like drama where you're trying to achieve some kind of emotion or trying to further the story along. You're trying to figure out what's the funniest way to do something.
Well, the film initially - we had decided to pair joy with fear because I don't know about you - for me fear was a major motivator in junior high. So we thought there's probably some good stuff there... As the film went on, we had developed all these great scenes that were really funny, but in the third act, it wasn't adding up to anything.
They didn't send me the script for Scary Movie 4 because the script was very secretive. So I never did get one actually. But it is David Zucker and there is complete trust. So I read my scenes and I thought they were really funny. I thought it would be a riot to play the blind girl.
It's so interesting to watch Ben Stiller work because he just knows what's funny.
When I read a script, I have to see the funny, and if I can see it's funny, it helps me to be able to transmit that.
Instead of improvisers who want to be funny by themselves, we aim to try and make the scene itself as funny as possible. As a creator, I think that's someone you'd rather work with, whether it's a movie or a sitcom; that kind of methodology is good for collaboration. People want to be with those kinds of performers.
It was hard doing scenes with Bobby Cannavale because I would break up laughing because he's so funny.
If you try to deliver a funny line in a funny way, it comes out as wacky and you ruin the scene.
For us, we just start with the character. We think of Stifler, and that usually just leads to something that's outrageous.
