I'm surprised by how many people have not seen 'Footloose.'

I was chubby and awkward, and the only way I could really meet girls was to join children's theater, so that's what I did.

That movie was my girlfriend. That was my girl." I knew there was going to be initial anger. As a matter of fact, when I was deciding to do Footloose that was one of the first things that I had to realize. First of all, I had to figure out a human connection to it but then I also had to reconcile that I was going to get beat up a little bit on this a little bit.

I think that there's a particular type of person who goes into children's theater, and then goes into theater in high school. There was something about the guys I knew in theater, we were all very vulnerable. You could tell that at some point we were made fun of.

I wouldn't take on the project unless I could have complete creative control in casting.

There's something really special for a young person to sit in an audience and discover somebody, and it's rare to do because so much of a movie's economics are based on pre-existing actors or actresses.

I've done movies where I've had to cast actors and teach them to rap, and cast rappers and teach them to act.