When I move from being a cameraman to being a director I looked at a lot of other cameramen who tried to make the move. And in each case they moved up their camera operator to be the DP, which really meant they didn't want to give up being the DP, and really wanted to do both. And my feeling was if I was going to succeed as a director, I had to just be a director and give up the safety net of being a cameraman.

When I move from being a cameraman to being a director I looked at a lot of other cameramen who tried to make the move. And in each case they moved up their camera operator to be the DP, which really meant they didn't want to give up being the DP, and really wanted to do both. And my feeling was if I was going to succeed as a director, I had to just be a director and give up the safety net of being a cameraman.

They want to let the audience figure things out and let the reaction shot get the laugh.

These movies are like my kids. I just love them to death. Some of them go to Harvard and some of them can barely graduate high school.

The first cut I do is usually between five and 10 minutes shorter then the cut that we release. Anything I think isn't working or might not work, I don't even put it in the director's cut. And usually it's the studio suggesting I put stuff back in, as opposed to studios saying, "You got to lose 40 minutes," they are always saying, "You've got to gain five minutes."

I was seeing a lot of really good things about Get Shorty when it came out, and my wife pointed out that if you validate the good reviews, you also have to validate the bad reviews.

The weird thing is that I hate to fly, and the quote that I give people is that every time I get off a plane, I view it as a failed suicide attempt.