Jim Cameron is proof that if you are good, you'll get promoted.

Martin Scorsese was one of the few who had not been an assistant. Most of the guys had been an assistant and worked their way up. But I had seen an underground picture he had made in New York, a black-and-white film. I had done a picture for American International, about a Southern woman bandit, the Ma Barker story, and it was very successful, and I had left to start my own company, and they wanted me to make another one.

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

I look for the ability to work. Directing is hard work. They don't teach you that in film school. Critics are not aware of it, but it is hard, physical work.

Motion pictures are the art form of the 20th century, and one of the reasons is the fact that films are a slightly corrupted artform. They fit this century - they combine Art and business!

When you're talking horror or sci-fi, you're working in a genre that has loosely certain thematic elements, or, you could even call them rules. But rules are there to be broken. I think that young filmmakers should go all the way back to the history of horror, from silent films like "Nosferatu", and through to today's horror films, so they understand the history of horror films and what has been done. Understand that, and then add something new or original.

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.