MICHAEL MCKEAN

Even when there are banalities, they're usually kind of benign banalities.

I think you have everyone kind of pulling on the same end of the rope. It's not like you're Robin Williams and everyone else is a deaf mute. It's like - there's plenty of help.

I made some friends who are still friends, and this is the city of my birth. I love living here when there's a reason to, other than just moving here. I still don't like the winters here, but it's an amazing city and I love it.

They were kind of like little Stephen King stories... but these go back many hundreds of years.

I'm all over the place. As you may have seen from the credits, I write with everybody.

When we can figure out a way to really tour and make a profit, then we'll do it again.

The process depends on the situation, and I don't think there are any two songs that have gone exactly the same way... well, actually, that's not true.

I'm kind of the town pump. I think I have a pretty good ear for what sounds good in this style.

Sometimes we drop in and do an acoustic set somewhere, and that's really fun to take all these insanely loud songs, and to do them quiet. It's really a sight to see... or to hear!

That's a job that it makes a few friendships, but it probably breaks more.

You know, I think it's one of those cases where the situation really does dictate your level of ridicule.

Some people stay in the academic world just to avoid becoming self-aware. You can quote me on that.

After I left 'Laverne & Shirley,' I got a ton of offers to play the goofy guy next door, and there were a couple of series that I was offered that turned out to be successful series, but it was too close to what I'd done on my series, and I was really glad I didn't take it.

I'm not really a gourmet. I like to try new things.

I'm not a big oyster eater. But I know people who will sit at a raw bar and eat oyster for two hours.

I'm not a lawyer, thank God. Not that there's anything wrong with it. I've never had the brain power for it. I was not the kind of guy who could learn case law.

I think a villain who starts his morning looking in the mirror, wringing his hands, and going, 'How can I be evil today?' is not an interesting villain. An interesting villain is a person who you understand on some level, I think.

I have never had a plan. Things happen to me, and, of course, I make friends who later say, 'Hey, you know who would be good for this? McKean would be good for this.' And they hire me, and if they like me, they hire me again, or the word gets out.

'Clue' was a big flop when it came out, but it became a... It's a movie that almost everyone references with me, now, when I run into people.

To direct a sequel to somebody else's work is not interesting to me.

On film, when you're driving home from the set, you realize what you should have done, but it's too late. When you're taking the subway home from your play, you realize what you did wrong, and you go back the next night and you do it better, or you screw it up again in a different way. It's a different thing altogether.

I pray to the shrine of 'Mr. Show.' It saved sketch comedy.

Some of the most interesting characters in literature and in movies and TV have been ones that you can't quite figure out all the way.

It's nice to take the gloves off, to really examine your character's desires and goals.

I can have a real long day; I can have a 14-hour day of intense work and then get home, and it's just me and TCM on into the night.