When I was 13, Eddie Murphy was to me what Chris Tucker was to 13-year-olds when I made 'Rush Hour.' And 'Rush Hour' really came out of the fact that I grew up watching 'Beverly Hills Cop' and '48 Hrs.'

You've got to think about how to do things for the right price. You have to shoot in different places to be creative and get tax rebates.

Movies are the biggest export in the world, the biggest American export. It influences people all over the world.

I'm trying to be a little bit more mature about my choices and think about what I want to direct next, instead of just jumping into a movie 'cause I want to do it.

When you're fearless, you take more risks because you're less conscious of failure or what can go wrong.

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.

Whoever writes a bad review, I put their name on a list, and they're going to get taken care of one day down the road. Otherwise, I don't let it bother me. The truth is, these are review-proof movies. The audiences are going to see it. My audience, our audience, isn't reading Esquire magazine to see if my movie is good or not. They just want to laugh, to be entertained, and lose themselves.