Ha!

Alex Epstein on Paul Feig.

He warns that sometimes people audition well in the room, but don't look good on screen, while other times an actor doesn't read well in the room, but "the camera makes sense of their face."

I gotta agree. I can't figure out anything from someone's audition. And I can't even remember hearing of any director who can reliably audition an actor.
It feels like what actually happens is that you hire an actor -- for whatever reason you tell yourself -- and then you adjust your directing to them. The work (movie, play) gets adjusted to do whatever that actor felt like doing and that's what makes everyone happy. I mean, that's not entirely true. But it's a lot of what's true.

On BRIDESMAIDS, they did 8 screenings. They'll do a "p" or polished screening -- their best cut. They'll also do an "e" or experimental screening, where they try stuff out. Sometimes there's stuff that doesn't seem like it will work that absolutely "destroys" in front of an audience.

Comedy. It's a cliche to say that comedy is hard. That's true. What surprises me is how the experts -- absolute experts, mind you -- have no idea what's working and what isn't.

Bunny lick.

I see this on every comedy I've worked on. No matter how much experience the director and actors have, they don't know how long to hold a line for laughs until after the first performance. People with a lot of experience don't know. Don't have any idea.