"I think, since we’re on Peter Sellers, Being There has always been very, very close to me. I just love that film. I love everything about it. I love what it said. I love his performance and the whole thing of doing the outtakes when Sellers was laughing. There’s a wonderful thing — terrific actor whose name I do not know, he runs the elevator in the mansion there. And at one point Sellers gets on the elevator. The first time he gets on, he says, “This is a very small room,” and it makes the guy laugh. At any rate, there’s one where Sellers gets on the elevator and the actor bricks; he starts laughing before anyone says anything. It’s just that what they were doing was so funny, and Sellers was so funny, this actor bursts out laughing and then composes himself. It’s all in character, and yet it’s all completely genuinely him. It’s one of my favorites."

"Sunset Boulevard is the ultimate film noir for me. It has this incredibly unpleasant main character, who is played with a lot of charm by William Holden, and he thinks he’s really smart, and it turns out that he’s kind of in over his head. I love the environment. I love the way the story is told in flashbacks. I love the sense of Los Angeles. I love the humor in it — it’s a really funny movie — and it’s just one of those iconic things that, if you know the movie, you run into it once a month in some way, especially living in L.A. It’s got great lines in it. There’s incredible dialogue, incredible visual moments. Surprises. It’s a horror movie and a comedy at the same time; it’s all over the place in terms of genre. When I first saw it, I just couldn’t believe that it was a big Hollywood movie made by a studio because it’s so peculiar."