Cher is really down-to-earth, very nurturing, incredibly funny and fun, a great storyteller, and creates a great environment on the set.

I've always had a love affair with New York City, and I've threatened to get an apartment there one day. But it just made sense for me to set 'Burlesque' on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. It's a place I know intimately well and love, and I think there's a great story to be told with L.A.

Disney was kind enough, thoughtful enough and believed enough in me, as a director, to wait for me to be available.

I'm not Shakespeare. I have no delusions of who I am, as a writer. I wrote a simply beautiful script that's a fun-filled, joyous fantasy, and I was fine with making changes for the actors that made them comfortable.

I know that I've definitely found what I should be doing with my life. In my life, as far as my career goes, I always felt, as an actor, that it was something that would just be a temporary thing that would get me to what I wanted to do next. That's what my acting did. I really feel that I'm a much better director than I was an actor.

Cher is really down-to-earth, very nurturing, incredibly funny and fun, a great storyteller, and creates a great environment on the set.

I actually had a movie green lit at Disney the same week 'Burlesque' was green lit - a movie for Disney called 'Mash-Up', about a high school marching band.