"I think my favorite movie ever in the world might be Tootsie. I love that movie. It’s just got everything. I mean, I guess it doesn’t have murder, but you know what I mean. Like, for me, it’s so smart, it’s so dry, it’s so f—ing funny. And the performances — every single role is so good, and so important. And it made me fall in love with the idea of New York City, and it made me fall in love with actors and what they do. I thought it was so funny when I saw it the first time, but you know, now I’m a real live actor. As I was studying acting and stuff, and started to relate to it on that level, I think it’s a great show about actors without being about the business, because it’s about an actor wanting to be an artist, and he learns how to use the business to make art. And then there’s Bill Murray, who could fart and just be the greatest. Everything, everything about that movie just tickles me to no end."

"The Producers is one of my favorite movies, and I don’t mean the musical. I mean the original one that Mel Brooks directed, with Zero Mostel. I saw it when it first came out. I saw it in the movie theaters, back in the ’60s. I just think as a comedy, and also being in the business as I am, and coming from theater, it just had that much more impact for me. That’s a movie I like very much."

"I put these two films together because Jacques Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort is a light and airy musical with sherbet-colored costumes and a painted town, while the other, Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz, is a dark, grimy, semi-autobiographical show-business story about a man who makes musicals. These two classics remind me that music and dance can say more than any other kind of action, and that life is a stage whether you are on it or directing it."