When I was shooting 'The Bourne Identity,' I had a mantra: 'How come you never see James Bond pay a phone bill?' It sounds trite, but it became the foundation of that franchise.

It's very hard for a studio to take a chance on a piece of original material. They used to have the fall-back of DVD sales. They had ways in which they could safely make an investment in a piece of original material, and those opportunities aren't necessarily there anymore.

At the end of the day, I like the spy genre, as opposed to the action movie genre, because spies are smart. The successful spies are the smarter spies.

To be a lone filmmaker thousands of miles from home with nobody believing in me, that seems romantic.

The thing about TV is it's a meritocracy. I love that aspect of it - and I've had shows that have gone on the air and been canceled. I've seen the good and the bad of it.

I started my career wanting to make a 'James Bond' movie, and I couldn't get hired! I made 'The Bourne Identity,' and ultimately the impact of that film was that it changed the 'James Bond' franchise.

Sometimes rules are there to save your life.