Movies are the biggest export in the world, the biggest American export. It influences people all over the world. Music and movies. That's what's exciting about what we do, the fact that it's so global. It brings people together. People don't have to understand the language to laugh at actors. They're going to laugh even though they don't understand what they're saying. Cause they're seeing it.

When you're the director, you kinda do all the work.

Miami Beach - that's where I grew up, in a middle-class Jewish family led by my maternal grandfather. Me, my great-grandmother - a Holocaust survivor, who was my roommate - my grandparents, my mom and her brother all shared a four-bedroom house.

I'm not tied to budgets. I'm tied to the story that I want to tell, and how much it's going to cost is up to whatever the economic situation of the studio is.

Before I did 'Rush Hour,' I was a big fan of Jackie Chan movies and I had seen all of them.

Would it be nice to win a film award one day? Yes. But the critics are going to have to wait till I'm ready. Right now, my gift is making big movies that audiences want to see.

Producing is making films without having to work sometimes. It's still making films, but it's a different job.