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

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.

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

I became a real Shell Motor Oil expert, and I did this 25-minute film. It turned out really well and, as a result, they offered me more work and lots of commercials to direct.

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.

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.

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.