I think if people want to see pure sex in the movie, they have the Internet and the extraordinary things are available.

When you're working with movie stars, part of the deal is that, if they have something to say, you'd better listen. You don't have to absolutely listen and not talk, but there is another creative force at work, and to be successful working with movie stars, you have to bring that force to work for you. You have to find something that's comfortable for them, and at the same time, that's in the parameters of what you're trying to do yourself.

We got some devastating reviews on Animal House at the start.

There's been an amazing backlash for the last decade in America: political correctness. In many ways, I think that, while we've been remarkably violent in our media, there's been a real schizophrenia. In private, on the Internet, and on public-affairs shows or talk radio, we're way more explicit than we've ever been. But traditional Hollywood has been much more frightened than it ever was in the '70s about presenting things that could be perceived as politically incorrect.

The real trick for me as a director is to make sure that people don't start pushing because the harder you push as a perform the less funny it becomes.

I don't think my sense of humor has changed at all; I was born with this, for better or for worse.

I'd always been a science fiction enthusiast.