It proved to be pretty impossible to get funds for a feature film in Finland. It's still small, but the film industry was miniscule at that point in the early '80s.

I feel like I learned very early on that your heroes are only as powerful as your villains. And I'm attracted to intelligent villains.

There were a lot of people dreaming about making films, and they would finance maybe 6 films a year. Because they were funded by the government, the films sort-of had to deal with serious social issues - and, as a result, nobody went to see those films.

I was making films when I was about 12 years old - Super-8 films.

This was in '79. I got pretty restless there, sitting around with a lot of people sitting around smoking cigarettes and talking about films, but nobody really doing anything.

In Finland, getting a university degree is the first thing that you expect your kids to do.

Ford Fairlane was one of those movies that was so much fun to make that it was bound not to be a big hit.