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

We're not used to seeing movies, especially with physical action, when it isn't the man who comes in to save the day.

I had always wanted to tell a story that was set in Los Angeles in the '50s, because that's where I grew up, and it was the city of my childhood memories.

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 didn't look at it as a transition so much, because I never intended to have a career as a journalist, writing about people who make movies.

I was never a critic. I was a journalist and wrote about filmmakers, but I didn't review movies per se. I make that distinction only because I came to it strictly as someone who was just a lover of storytellers and cinematic storytellers. And I still am. I'm still a great movie fan, and I ,that love of movies is very much alive in me. I approach the movies I make as a movie-lover as much as a movie-maker.

Bad Influence, which is an early movie of mine that I'm very fond of. It was an unhappy experience when that picture got released, because it coincided with that ridiculous Rob Lowe videotape scandal.