First of all, Sam Fuller left a group of extraordinary movies that are unique, that are "Fuller-esque," as one might say, which makes them stand apart from any other director's films.

Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.

Now, grosses are listed in the newspapers and on television like it's a sporting event. It's ridiculous, because when you're watching a movie, unless you're an investor in the movie or a stockholder in the studio, what do you care how much it's grossing or how much it cost or any of that stuff?

When I first went to Pittsburgh, I had never been there before, and we hadn't even decided to shoot there yet. I just went to see the location of Michael Chabon's novel. Once there, I became aware that Pittsburgh is a "wonder boy," in the narrow sense of the term, just as the human characters are.

My very first professional writing credit was on a movie called The Dunwich Horror, and Roger Corman was the executive producer.

I had a checkered early career, for sure, with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about.

I did it [photojournalism] as something that was really rewarding to do, given the opportunity to express myself about something I cared about, and also to learn a lot by watching filmmakers I admired. In a sense, it was my film school. After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own. So I stopped doing that and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money.