I learned to take the first job that you have in the business that you want to get into. It doesn't matter what that job is, you get your foot in the door.

I realized that I really, almost by accident, had fallen into a labyrinthine, very powerful paradigm for dealing with these things through genre films. And once I realized that and realized the power of it, and the fact that because horror films aren't, in general, studio products - studios back them sometimes, but they don't try to meddle too much, because they kind of don't want to sully their skirts - you have a lot of freedom.

When I was a kid, I was taken to something called Telenews in Cleveland by my best friend's father. My own father was gone by the time I was 5, I think, but this man would take us to Telenews at the end of World War II, and we'd watch all these newsreels. I'd seen real stuff. That kind of stuck in my mind.

But I made him the Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security because that added an element of political espionage.

If you're in a theater, people are texting, all around you. You have the little glowing screens everywhere. Think of how annoying that can be.

A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?

I learned to take the first job that you have in the business that you want to get into. It doesn't matter what that job is, you get your foot in the door.