"Cabaret from Mr. Fosse, initially, as well as Lenny — those two films seem to have made a very big impression on me. With Cabaret — I got a glimpse of it again on an airplane; it was offered in the classics section in the airplane that I was traveling in. And there were moments in that film where it seems he has created painting. For not even an entire second — or an entire half a second — you capture a glimpse of a “creature” that seemed to exist only in the world of a night club in Berlin in 1931. And it was still, but there was smoke coming up from the creature’s cigarette. Like the cartoons of George Grosz, there was a grotesqueness to some of the laughter, and he mixed what seemed to be an almost documentary-like reality combined with a very private story and also a kind of fantastical theatrical reality as well. The camera was always in fascinating spots, the sound creeped in, in ways that captured the subconscious level."

"I think it’s one of the funniest movies ever made. I think Charles Grodin is hugely underrated as a comedic actor. I think he’s brilliant. Jeannie Berlin who recently got a lot of attention again because of Kenneth Lonergan’s movie Margaret is amazing in this movie — she was actually nominated for an Oscar for it. Cybill Shepherd is great. I just love it, I love how what a s— the central character is, he’s really totally selfish and also really confused, in a great way. I also love that a lot of the comedy typically in movies like this, with sort of high concept plots, the comedy and the drama are driven by the central character lying to the people around them. But weirdly in The Heartbreak Kid, most of the drama comes from him telling the truth, he’s sort of excessively honest and straight forward, and it still manages to complicate these situations and cause a lot of tension and hurt feelings, but I just love Elaine May, I like all of her movies."