An established property can be a blessing and a challenge. On one hand you have all those fans of the original that you can pick up with and continue on with but then you have a lot of people out there who haven't seen the first and might feel like this isn't a movie for them because of that.

I think some people are under the impression that you can simply just shoot it on blue, and then it's all done in post. But no, you really need to understand the pipeline, from beginning to end.

Obviously, there are lots of lessons to be learned on a first movie.

Sometimes with these things all the pieces fall into place. I mean, we've been talking about this for years and we don't have the script now, but sometimes things fall into place very quickly, and if everything lines up it could happen.

Go out and make something that reflects your interests, your taste, and your ideas. No one will pay you to make something until you have a few things you can show that you've directed. I got my start by making short films on my own.

The commercial music video industry is very hard to break into, and until you break in, that first job is the hardest thing in the world to get.

Tom [Cruise] is a great producer himself. He's got great sense of story. It's always great to have the perspective of the person who's playing the character in your film.