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.

I think that villains who are just brawn, muscles and weapons are boring. So I always try to find intelligence in my villains and also a sense of humor whenever that is possible.

I went out to some advertising agencies and asked if I could do anything.

Eventually, in '84, we made a film for a little over a million dollars - with American actors that was shot in English - that was shown in Finland A little action film called Born American.

You just never give up, no matter how hard the challenges are, and observe this world with a healthy dose of criticism and don't just follow the herd like somebody else might 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.

A government institution called the Finnish Film Foundation funds filmmaking there, and I wrote several screenplays but never got any money. They were sent back to me, and they said that they were too commercial for them.