We've got the prettiest girls in the world here in Los Angeles and there's a great music scene. And I learned what I learned about cinema here in Los Angeles so it's always been really important to me as a city to live in and I love making movies about it.

What a director does... essentially, it's storytelling, but a director also controls the feeling and the sounds and the texture. It's an act of creation, like a symphony or a painting or a story. But with different tools.

You play with everything you've got. I'm not a lover of cheap tricks. I've always loved playing with people, but there's no rule about it. You try everything you can.

As a filmmaker, it's about surviving and lasting. So many talented people that I've known in my life - directors and writers - just haven't made it and haven't had a chance.

When I got into the movie business, working with actors was the one thing I was really weak at. I didn't know what to say to actors. They scared me and intimidated me. The actors that I've worked with who have had a lot of experience, or who I've even grown up watching as a kid, were really scary. I was like, "What am I going to say to this person?" But, I've matured. It's fun. I understand what actors do now.

Horror is a reaction; it's not a genre. Somebody's life would have to be in danger for it [story] to be a horror story.

In Halloween, I viewed the characters as simply normal teenagers. Laurie, Jamie Lee's character, was shy and somewhat repressed. And Michael Myers, the killer, is definitely repressed. They have certain similarities.