Quotes from Adam McKay

There's nothing the people love more than a Federal Reserve joke.

I gotta say - if I clicked on a movie interview, and the first part was all about Walt Whitman, I'd love that article.

You need the audience to go on the ride with you. You can't just isolate them.

Sometimes I know a joke I'm going to yell out ahead of time, but most of the time it's stream of conscious. You never really know it until you've got everyone dressed up, the set is built, all the extras are here.

Having a guy on a microphone yelling lines at you is counter to a lot of acting techniques.

When I was at 'SNL,' I would constantly get in arguments, 'Why aren't we more political? We're not going after Bush.' Then look what happened - that Sarah Palin season, they were on fire. It was about something.

The key is a good story. If you have a good story, you have enough emotional beats that you can hit.

For my money, I don't think there's been a better comedy than 'Kung Fu Hustle' in a lot of years. That movie just knocked me over.

That's always the trick with the sequels, is how much do you repeat from the first one. Because we all get bummed out when you go see a sequel and it's beat for beat.

It's Will Ferrell, he does Will Ferrell movies. But if you really look at it, he tries to do something different with each one, whether it's an action cop movie like 'The Other Guys' or doing 'Talladega Nights' going into red state America or 'Casa de Mi Padre' or 'Stranger Than Fiction,' which is more of a drama.

Things I used to get in trouble for writing at 'SNL,' suddenly other people like it.

The truth is, there's an information blockade in America, and it must be broken. In order to find crucial facts, numbers and outside perspectives, a person must spend an hour searching and cross-searching on the computer.

The one thing for sure is, I don't ever want to waste a movie. I don't ever want to waste effort.

I got the sense that Alabama is a place where people don't want handouts and don't much care for people talking out of the side of their mouth.

I could see how people get addicted to animation, and I understand why it's so great for comedy. You can do whatever you want and it just happens.

Any time Chris Nolan wants to call me for advice, he can.

Obamacare is a private mandate that will drive billions to the insurance industry, much like the auto insurance mandate. Hardly socialism. In fact, it was a Republican plan to begin with.

Michael Lewis has the amazing ability to take complex formulas and concepts and turn them into page-turners.

If you look at 'Avatar,' could you imagine if you did 'Avatar' for 50 million dollars? It would be ridiculous! You would almost be getting laughs from the audience, unless you got a real indie director to do something incredibly stylised.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.

Nothing is more enjoyable for me than when I'm watching a movie or a TV show and there's that sense that anything can happen. It is the most fun feeling in the world.

I'm a huge hip hop fan going way back, like, back to '83. I had my Gemini mixer listening to Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow.

For 'Breaking Bad,' people were with Walter White for 99% of that show, even though that guy is a monster.

I can't exactly say why there's not much protest music to speak off. And I know there are acts out there still putting a message in their music.