"Preston Sturges — Lady Eve, with Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, and that’s just a brilliant film. I could have had any number of Preston Sturges films. He’s the funniest director I think. When I was working with Bridget Fonda, we were talking — we were mucking about doing double-takes and she said, “My grandfather did a quadruple take in the Lady Eve.” I thought, “Your grandfather? Oh, your grandfather! Oh, you mean Henry Fonda. Oh, for God’s sake.” So I went back and she’s right. He does a quadruple take."

"I feel about The Lady Eve the same way I feel about A Hard Day’s Night. Both movies are on my all-time top ten list of favorites. The first time I saw them, I had the same impression of comic density. Enormous energy that I was running to keep up with. I felt like I had to see this movie again, if only to have another shot at laughing at the hundreds of jokes. I love movies that make you feel like you are not getting it all the first time, that there is much more to be had. Eve is my favorite Sturges. I love the chemistry between Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda—like when she takes him back to her stateroom, manipulates him into making a pass, and shuts him down with “Hopsie, you ought to be kept in a cage.” On a pure filmmaking level, the honeymoon night on the train when Eve confesses to all her premarital dalliances is a tour de force of writing, acting, and editing, and it’s one of the best musically scored comic sequences in any movie ever! Sturges’s mother was an adventuress, a confidante, and traveling companion of Isadora Duncan. I like to think there is more than a little of his mother in Eve."