I stopped doing that [photojournalism] and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money. Even for a cheap movie, you need film stock and equipment and actors.

I look for characters that interest me, and a story that keeps me involved and makes me want to know what happens next.

I had the great fortune to actually become friends with Sam [Fuller] and ultimately collaborate with him on White Dog, which we wrote together.

That love of movies is very much alive in me.

Of course, Sam [Fuller] was like, "No problem," because he treated it like a newspaper deadline. We worked long hours, often very late into the night, in his garage, which had been converted into an office. It was freezing cold outside and there was no heat in the garage, so he had a little space heater over by his side and I had a blanket that he graciously gave me to drape around my shoulders like a Navajo Indian. And he gave me cigars, too, of course.

What you care about [movie] is whether it's moving you, or whether you're caught up in it.

On a personal note, a legacy he left me, aside from being a friend who was important to me on many levels, was that the decades I knew Sam [Fuller] happened to be the decades that were his least happy professionally.