Carrie was a pretty big-budget movie at a real studio, with a director that had already done a bunch of things and had some notoriety, and Stephen King was the writer. He was banned from the set, but that was kind of an A-plus production. So that was my first experience.

I did Our Winning Season movie that Joe Roth produced, and Joe Ruben, who did Sleeping With The Enemy. He's a really cool director. That's where I met husband Dennis Quaid. Dennis and I met on location in Georgia, and I always thought that was a really great movie. That movie should be included, because it's a really terrific. It's a trite saying, but it's a real, great coming-of-age piece, and all the actors are wonderful.

We've become great friends with Rob Zombie, and I gave him my original script for Halloween for his 40th birthday. Like, Nicolas Cage was there with a shrunken head he brought as a gift, all these things, and I'm thinking, "What can I give Rob Zombie? This is very weird." And I just happened to look at my pile of scripts and I went, "My kids don't need all these. I think I'll give him my original Halloween script, since he told me that was his favorite movie, and I was his favorite actress from that time period." I said, "He deserves to have that."

My strategy to show caricature idea of American youth culture, which I think worked after talking about it for so many years, is that I had only a few things. I wanted to buy my own wardrobe for Rock 'N' Roll High School, which of course they said "Yes" to, because their clothing budget was $200, and I ended up spending my whole salary - which I think was about $2,100 - on my clothes. And also, any time I was onscreen, I wanted to have as much energy as I possibly could. I think it just really worked for the character.

We were lucky if we got two takes out of a scene in the Rock 'N' Roll High School. But the Ramones did get a lot of material cut out. I think Marky Ramone calls Mr. McGree "Mr. McGlube." But that was sort of endearing and charming, and made you just love the Ramones even more. Sometimes those flubs work in favor of the filmmakers. They just couldn't get out more than one sentence in a row. It was just kind of weird. I think they were just nervous.

With Halloween, the director was this genius wonder boy who was the writer, director, producer, along with his girlfriend. They were this team, and they were making this small movie, and it was just completely different, but it was really inspiring and a lot of fun, and also allowed me to do a lot of improvisation, because they just depended on the girls to expand their parts to bring some real life, being girls ourselves, to the characters.

I think Japans work really hard, and when they have a chance to listen to music, they just go crazy. And the Ramones would be a natural fit for Japan, because Japan invented the cartoon, and the Ramones, especially in Rock 'N' Roll High School, are very cartoonish. So it'd be a perfect group for them.