"I saw this for the first time at CalArts [and] since then I’ve become a big fan of all Preston Sturges films. Again, I [had] already chosen what I wanted to do for a living but [this] story touched me so deeply. Here’s a guy who makes comedies during the Depression and he’s so isolated in Hollywood [that] he sets out to learn what’s going on with people. He becomes a hobo. And he ends up way in the South and [is] put into this work prison. And everyone in Hollywood believes that he’s dead, that a hobo stole his coat and was killed by a train. And so he’s there and [he can’t] get word back that he’s still alive. It’s a horrible situation. For Christmas Eve, at the depth of his misery, a black church in the segregated South invites all the prisoners out. And they sit there and what they watch is a Pluto cartoon. It’s the famous scene of Pluto getting the flypaper stuck on him and he can’t get it off. And [the audience] starts howling with laughter. Howling with laughter. People who you wouldn’t think would still have laughter in their bodies. And Sullivan came out of this and gets back to Hollywood and everyone’s like, “Oh, you had this horrible situation, you must make a great drama.” And he goes, “No, I’m going to make a comedy. Because that’s what the world needs.”"