JEFF BAENA

I went to film school; I went to NYU film school.

I remember when I was in film school. It was my second year, and some kid did - had this really over-religious symbolism; like, it said 'John 3:16' and had angels falling over, and it was just this insane - it wasn't that great.

One of the interesting things about the 'Decameron' itself was it was written in the Florentine dialect as opposed to the Latin vernacular - and that was mainly to have it be a piece of literature for the people as supposed to some kind of highfalutin' canon.

Not to be negative, but I think the biggest lesson is don't trust anyone.

I'm just trying to get an exposure and make my day.

My pet peeve is when people criticize things when they're just trying to have a conversation.

It's so rare when marketing and press doesn't ruin your movie.

Zombies sort of typify this ambiguity, that they're not dead and not alive.

In Judaism, the temple was the most holy site in the world. But if you extend that argument as a metaphor, and you say 'The world is a holy place,' and you're treating this holy place like a money-lending psycho, then Jesus says, 'This is hypocrisy!' and he'd point it out and flip it over.

'Motherwort.' 'Great Leopard's Bane.' These are awesome band names.

I grew up in suburbia, so it's a world I'm familiar with... but in my experience, all the families that I grew up thinking were the perfect families who kept it together... all their secrets would come out, and it'd be something dark and disgusting beneath the surface, so I wanted to exploit that.

Aubrey Plaza is absolutely amazing.

If something's really selfless, then there's really no value in it for you... there's only value in it for the world.

Having been through breakups when you get back with the person thinking it's going to work the second time - it never does.

You show a movie to your friends when you're working on it, but you don't have any real objectivity. You just don't know. So that moment when it's shown for the very first time at Sundance, it's just terrifying. I'm so anxious. And then every screening is different.

I try to keep everything under wraps. Everything I can do to make sure people don't know what they're getting themselves into, I will do it.

For us, when we think about the Middle Ages, it's sort of this rarefied, distant time that we have no connection to, especially if you grew up in America.

When people are committed to things, and the world view they have is no longer in alignment with our world view, then it becomes funny.

I wanted to do something a little bit more feminine after my second movie, 'Joshy,' which was so masculine.

I hate when people eat food and talk with their mouth full. I always cover my mouth when I eat, but I've had it where there's little bologna bits flying on your food.

When you have new people coming in and you sort of want to show them the ropes, it's always easier to have people that know the process and are able to sort of just do their thing, and then everyone can kind of follow their lead.

For me, the whole idea of performance is not being self-aware, and then sort of just experiencing.

I know, when I was in film school, some of my films were silly, but a lot of them were more dramatic. I don't think I intentionally set out to do comedy stuff. I guess that's a consequence of coming up working with David O. Russell and skewing toward those sensibilities.

Comedy is all about rhythm and context, and there's all types of comedies, and it's about finding that right brand, that consistency in tone.

I always knew I wanted to make movies since I was around eleven. I never thought of it as wanting to do straight-up comedy. Even now, I don't see things in terms of genre.