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

Several times we were stranded in strange places without any money and with our credit cards cancelled - trapped in a hotel that we couldn't check out of because we had no money to check out.

I loved cutting together simple commercials about margarine or soft drinks - all kinds of silly products - but I tried to make the commercials different.

I decided that, somehow, I had to get out of there and go to Hollywood. I had never been to America.

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.

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

Sometimes you get involved in a film because you just love making movies and you want to keep working. Sometimes you're lucky enough to find something that you really care about. Therefore, now I'm emphasizing developing my own projects and writing my own screenplays, so that I can do exactly what I like to do.