[on advice he receives from his father, Jerry Stiller] My father is always telling me to take care of myself and get a lot of rest. He's always saying, "Sleep will fix anything. Go take a nap". I think he's right. I find when I get frazzled, if I get a good night's sleep, I feel much better about things.

If my parents were, like, plumbers, who knows what I would be doing?

There's an old saying in Hollywood: It's not the length of your film, it's how you use it.

I have no problem with straight actors playing gay, but I always feel like I can tell. Does that sound horrible?

I pay a huge chunk of money to my agent and publicity people to shield me from my fan mail. I don't even want to know how many letters I get. I don't see fan mail as a good thing. It always makes me think of stalkers.

Normally, people tend to shut off their ambitions and competitive thinking because it doesn't help them much in normal life. But in the movie business you've constantly got to prove yourself. So I can be a real asshole on the set sometimes.

Show business is great, but when you're in a movie that made more than $120 million, the perspective changes. I'd never had the experience of being in a movie that so many people found funny. After the enormous success of There's Something About Mary (1998), I was able to command much more money and I got recognized more. But the reason for all this is only because the movie made money, not because I'm any more talented or better looking.

Every actor is out there trying to get parts, auditioning, going to acting class and creating a network of people who are in the same position you are. I couldn't sit around and wait to get work, because it wasn't happening. I would just try to create my own projects with friends who were filmmakers.

I think most actors have incredibly big egos, but they're also incredibly insecure. That's a bad combination. I include myself in this group. For whatever psychological reasons, we want and need approval from everybody in the universe, though we also think we're totally unworthy of it. We need to validate ourselves through our work.

(On his most memorable pre-acting job) For a summer I was a busboy and waiter at a place in New York called Cafe Central, which was a hip, trendy restaurant in 1985. First I bused tables and was really bad at it. I'm clumsy at carrying plates and glasses. You had to have a swiftness and a facility for carrying stacked objects. That wasn't me. I was interested in who was coming in, because it was an actor hangout. I would want to see who was talking to whom and what they were saying - basically, stuff you shouldn't do as a person of service. Dudley Moore came into the restaurant and I was really interested in what he was saying. I kept going over to make sure that he and his companion had enough coffee and that their plates were cleared. I think I really annoyed him. I kept changing the ashtrays with that move where you put the clean ashtray over the full ashtray and remove both and put back the clean ashtray. I think I did that one time too many. Then I became a waiter there, and dealing with orders and the kitchen was worse. It prompted me to get acting work.

(1998 quote on auditioning) It's hard to maintain a sense of dignity in an audition. I have done so many auditions where I've put it out there and have been met with that kind of blank stare - "Great! Thanks! OK! Great work! Thanks for coming in!" At the door I'm thinking, 'What the hell am I doing with my life?'

[on Zoolander (2001)] It wasn't a big hit. It came out 10 days after 9/11, so a strange time to release a movie but I'm not sure it wouldn't have been any bigger at any other time.

What I really like about directing is that it's easier, a different pressure.

I wish I was black, every white Jewish guy wishes he was black.

I wish I was black, every white Jewish guy wishes they were black