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 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.

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.

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 want to do something that shows some type individuality and talent and imagination - at the same time, you want to be truthful to the predecessors, because obviously the audience liked something about them and you have to replicate that experience to a certain extent.

In Hollywood, you tend to get pigeonholed to certain genres, and then when you try to do something different, it's not always so easy. Obviously, you don't want to keep repeating yourself, all the time. So, it's a constant struggle for every filmmaker and actor to find something that you can really feel passionate about. It's a profession like anything else.

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