There's always something that draws you away from the original script.

In order to create art today, you have to compromise your art somewhat and be a businessman.

One of the worst things you can do is have a limited budget and try to do some big looking film. That's when you end up with very bad work.

I love the process of making films and an incidental satisfaction is the fact that most of them made money.

When I started I had no knowledge of films whatsoever. I was an engineering major at Stanford. And I found out as a senior that they had two film critics on the Stanford Daily, and they got free passes to all the theaters in Palo Alto. So I thought, I'll do that, and I became a film critic. And then I became interested in films. But I had no time to study anything in that area because I was a senior, just finishing up as engineering.

Somebody who moved up very fast was Jim Cameron, who was a young guy out of - I think he came from Arizona, from some community college there, and he was building model spaceships, on a picture called Battle Beyond the Stars.

First, you have to be intelligent. I have never met a successful director who isn't intelligent. A director who is not intelligent might have one hit picture, but he won't be able to follow it up. So I look for intelligence.