Zach Braff

[On Hollywood’s initial response to his Garden State script] Everyone said no. Everyone with a date book and a phone in Los Angeles said no.

When you are writing a script, you can’t help but stop and daydream about which actors are going to play the parts, and I kind of imagined Natalie Portman. Not just because she is beautiful, because obviously she is, but she is a wonderful actress who hasn’t had a chance in a long time to show the world how talented she is.

They put all this money into these huge movies, and then no one goes to see them… That sort of shows that they’re out of touch. Then, everyone in town passes on my little movie, and it does really well.

I was kosher until I had my Bar Mitzvah, and I parlayed officially becoming a man into telling my father I wanted to eat cheeseburgers.

Everyone has an idea that they think would be a great movie. Everyone has a cousin who they think you should work with. Everyone has a warped vision of Hollywood and what success in Hollywood is like. That you love cocaine and that you spend every night in orgies with models. If only it were true.

I love “The Office”. I think it’s the funniest thing – Ricky Gervais is possibly the funniest person I’ve seen in my entire life.

I don’t believe in perfection. I don’t think there is such a thing. But the energy of wanting things to be great is a perfectionist energy.

I personally really like getting a proper album with artwork and everything.

A rivalry doesn’t happen in one or two races or in one year. It happens over a period of time to really get a rivalry going. We race together three or four races and get to beating on each other, that’s not a rivalry, that’s just a happening. You do that four or fives years, that’s a rivalry.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around – the music and the ideas.

[on which film had a bigger impact on her career – “The Notebook” or “Mean Girls”] For me personally it would be The Notebook. That was something I was dying to do when I read the script. I worked with so many amazing people and people responded so well to that film, and continue to. In terms of an impact on my career, that was significant. Mean Girls speaks to a really large audience, which is the kids and they eat that stuff up. I don’t know. It’s hard to choose.

There’s probably not a crew chief out there who hasn’t tried something that seemed like a good idea.

[on sleeping with Trump] I’m very food-motivated. That’s why I stayed and held out for so long because I was told there would be snacks. I was starving! Maybe that’s part of why I was easy prey because I was light-headed.

If you are someone, you know, with fame, whatever amount, it’s good to be married to someone who’s not impressed with that at all.

Mothers – we owe everything to them. They gave birth to us, they nurtured us, they made us who we are. And this Mother’s Day, we have just one thing to say to all the mothers out there: Get the fuck back to work.

I’m always shocked by the people who I’m attracted to. It’s always completely random. I generally like people who are a bit crazy but yeah, that’s pretty much my only prerequisite.

I don’t now what situation they came from and I don’t know what they were offered to go somewhere else. It’s the times now, There’s not a any loyalty for anyone or anything – a whole lot. Wherever the money’s at, that’s where they’re going, so I don’t blame them. They’ve got just a few years to get it done and if they don’t get it done then, then they aren’t going to get it done.

[On his favourite scene from “New Moon”] The Volterra scene, where I have to step into the light. There were many extras and many fans there. Some fans travelled across the world to be there. I felt a huge sense of responsibility, being in front of so many that are so obsessed with this story. It was nerve wrecking, but I never felt closer to the character before this.

A band’s only unique thing is its chemistry, especially if none of you are prodigious players or particularly handsome. The one thing you have is your uniqueness, so we hold on to that.

All I could think about was, ‘I just wanna blow him away. I wanna make him proud, because I really wanna sign with Timbaland and spend the rest of my career making music with Tim.’

Led Zeppelin was a very sensitive and beautiful animal beast.