"The first two, I’m gonna go with Elia Kazan, ’cause they’re really the reason why I became an actor in movies. East of Eden, with James Dean, and A Streetcar Named Desire, with Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. The performance by James Dean — the scene specifically where he tries to give his father, played by Raymond Massey, the money from selling the beans on his birthday, and he’s rejected — it broke my heart; it was not like anything I’d experienced before, in terms of art, and I’d seen a lot of movies at that point. I was 15, and I’d seen Bergman’s Seventh Seal and Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits and Welles’ Citizen Kane — great films, but when I saw Dean in that, it really put the hook in me because I felt like him and I knew then the power of film acting, and I knew then what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do to try to move people with motion pictures. So that’s why I have to put that on the list."

"When you inevitably are asked about your favourite record, you can scratch your head and go through a list, because your taste changes from year-to-year or through different periods of your life. However, I have always been able to say that Raw Power is my favourite from the moment I first heard it, and I don't think it has been equalled since. A couple of friends recommended it to me. At the age of 14, I was starting to play guitar in a certain way and the name [of Stooges' guitarist] James Williamson kept cropping up. A couple of guys I knew assumed I had been listening to Raw Power because of the way I was playing riffs. So I thought I had better investigate. I knew all about Iggy and The Stooges but I wasn't aware of Raw Power. I got the album in about 1976. I had heard so much about it that eventually I want into town to buy it and I picked up a copy for about three quid, which was all I had. The cover alone made me want to buy the record, and, when I heard it, I realised why my mates had been saying what they had. In particular, the song 'Gimme Danger' started off with a riff that was very much like one I was playing with the band I was in at the time. As a guitarist, James Williamson's playing struck me as having the technique of Jimmy Page but with the irreverence and attitude of Keith Richards. I have since become friends with James and have talked to him about what he was doing back then. He knew exactly what he was doing and it was very deliberate, which is always quite impressive. There is a lot more I could say about Raw Power. It gave me a path to follow as a guitar player. It was an opening into a world of rock & roll, sleaze, sexuality, drugs, violence and danger. That's a hard combination to beat."

"No one writes a complex woman like James L. Brooks, and no one embodies her like Holly Hunter. When we wrapped shooting on This Is 40, Judd Apatow gave me a photo of Brooks directing Hunter that I hung above my desk, and I can hear them drawling and stammering and just being who they are."