The outsider hero is hero riding into town, he's the gunslinger, shame - the same thing, he didn't want to do it anymore, he wanted to live a different life but part of who you are sort of haunts you and you can't run away from evil and if you have special skills, and most people are mistreated, which is unfortunately in our world, we always need an equalizer, that type of character to come to our rescue.

I'd seen too many shrines in South Central and thought it was worth asking where the first bullet came from that started all this violence.

Even the Westerns that I grew up with, the Sergio Leone's and all that, there was always a sort of anti-hero, a guy reluctant to shame even, to pick up the gun again because he wants to help other people, and he does, he uses his skills for that.

If you see someone lying out knives and forks consistently, but then one day those knives and forks become weapons you're not sure if he does that as a warrior, that's just his thing.

I don't think the audience goes and thinks of the movie as a piece of art - there are some independent people who may go and have a higher appreciation for filmmaking. It is a great art form, but I don't think you look at a painting and a movie with the same eye.

You could call it that [urban Western], I guess, you could certainly call it that. A lot of these types of films are, really, if you get down to the core most suspense thrillers in this genre, the Western is sort of the birth of it all.

Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.