Quotes from Jon Favreau

Especially in the food business, critics take very seriously how much power they have. They can shut a restaurant down.

I remember watching the 'Iron Man' cartoons when I was younger. I remember reading the origin stories and some of the Silver Age stuff, and I read 'The Avengers' - 'The Defenders' and then 'The Avengers' - and that sort of brought me into 'Iron Man.'

There is no free lunch, so if you're playing with the big train set - on big movies - it's a lot of money they're entrusting you with, and you have to get that money back for them. I don't take that responsibility lightly.

I know that when I watch TV, I want to be transformed and transported, not just by the characters that I grow to love over the hours and seasons of watching but also the world that it plants me into.

I'll basically eat anything that a chef puts in front of me. One of the reasons is respect for the chef. I watch chefs eat at other chefs' restaurants, and they're very aware not to leave anything over because the chef is watching very closely. It's a very sincere interaction when two chefs are cooking for one another.

Back to the painting of the Sistine Chapel, there's always been run-ins between benefactors and artists.

I think what is nice about 'Elf,' and why it doesn't play as one long sketch, is that the character actually grows up during the course of the film. It's not just a character that you can keep checking in on and keep doing sketches about. It's a story. I'm pretty proud of how we told it.

The irony is that the more unapologetically sexist men are in movies, the more women tend to be attracted to them in person.

I was 22 and had worked on Wall Street for a year, and quit my job. I bought a motorcycle and sort of had this fantasy that I'd go cross-country like 'Easy Rider.' I went from New York to L.A., and on the way back, I stopped in Chicago and saw a friend of mine who was into improv. And I figured it might be fun to give it a shot.

Scorsese's been a hero of mine since I was young. If you saw 'Swingers,' you know I was definitely fixated on his body of work.

David Anspaugh, who was my first director, on 'Rudy,' was all about empowering the actor, making you feel comfortable and appreciated, allowing you to keep your dignity, and treating you like a man. Being treated like a grown-up makes you proud to be involved in a film.

What's fun about chefs is that they're big guys, often, and they might not look like the most athletic people, but they're very powerful people, and they have tremendous stamina... It takes a toll on their body, too.

I'm a very lazy person by nature. I have to be really engaged, and then I go straight from lazy to obsessive. I couldn't study chemistry, but I could memorize all the books for Dungeons and Dragons. It was ridiculous. The trick is to find what I like to do.

For a movie - any movie - to work, all the bread has to fall jelly side up; everything has to go right. You have to hit the zeitgeist.

I just adored 'Shaun Of The Dead.' That's a true mashup. That's a real Romero-era zombie movie and a real Gen X indie comedy. That was before zombie movies were cool, before 'Zombieland' and 'I Am Legend,' and now it has become a whole sub-genre.

I did a guest thing on 'My Name Is Earl,' and there is something about being involved in a TV show that's in the midst of its popularity that frees up the creative process.

I'm a pretty early adopter of social media. There's a whole subculture to it. I'm smart enough not to tweet things out of emotion.

Acting is the most fun. I like to do it and it's great that I can still do that, but you know, you don't really have a lot of control over things, so it's real hit or miss.

'King Kong,' especially the first two acts of it, is a really good example of the use of miniatures mixed with digital characters and how convincing it was.

The ultimate storyteller is Shakespeare, who was able to get the 'groundlings' to laugh at his bawdy humor and storylines but could still be studied by scholars to this day for the complexity of his language, meter, and symbolism. That's the real guy.

I'm of a generation of director that came up understanding special effects.

Half the people think I write Obama's speeches; the other half think I'm on 'Entourage.' So I'm at the level of fame where people kind of know who I am, but they confuse me with other people.

There is nothing as fun as making a cultural splash with a movie. Sometimes the splash happens, like with 'Swingers,' where it sort of slowly ripples out, yet everybody could quote it. Or it could be something like 'Elf,' where you just make a big splash right off the bat when the movie comes out.

Everybody loves a hit. There is nothing as fun as making a cultural splash with a movie.