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.

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

There was a long period of time when Sam Fuller had a lot of projects fall through and had a lot of difficulties getting a project off the ground. And I was able to observe him during that period, and see his incredible resiliency and courage as he faced this difficulty and just kept working.

As ridiculous as it is for anybody who knows how movies are made, there were people who actually wrote in reviews that this picture [Bad Influence] had been put out to capitalize on the scandal. Which, of course, would have been impossible.

What I try to do is give each actor an environment in which they can do their best work.

You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.

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