Many thrillers follow such reliable formulas that you can look at what's happening and guess how much longer a film has to run.
Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you've never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius.
I never studied anything about film technique in school. Eventually, I realized that cinema and theater are not so different: from the gut to the heart to the head of a character is the same journey for both.
I was a huge movie watcher, but I really loved 'Kenan & Kel,' 'Rugrats,' 'Doug,' & 'Catdog.' I was also into drama films, though, and I really loved 'Poetic Justice' and 'Set it Off.'
Whether that's an action film or a comedy or a drama or anything in between, I'm willing to prove that I can play with the big boys.
A person who shakes a leg to 'Zor ka jhatka' at a disc doesn't care about its picturization in the film. He enjoys and downloads it because of the merit of the song.
Filming is long - you get very tired, and your skin breaks out and you get lumps and bumps. It's easier if you're allowed to have bags under your eyes.
If I am to be remembered for anything I have done in this profession, I would like it to be for the four films in which I directed Spencer Tracy.
Prior to 'Tokyo Drift,' the iconic perception of Asians in Hollywood films has been either the Kung Fu guy, the Yakuza guy or some technical genius. It used to be such a joke, to be laughed at rather than with.
When a new generation watches the films, people might mention that it has improved their lovemaking. I guess it's because it isn't threatening. It was very sweet and delicate.
We did this two-week boot camp before we filmed the movie. I got to know everybody in the group and we became friends. We got really tight throughout those two weeks.
I didn't dream about being a director. I didn't know I wanted to do something with film until the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Morris College in Atlanta, Georgia.
I deliberately, in a way, went for something that was a huge challenge and was a big period film. I was excited about the canvas on which I could tell the story as much as the story itself.
Film is important; it can be more than reportage or a novel - it creates images people have never seen before, never imagined they'd see, maybe because they needed someone else to imagine them.
It was really weird for me filming in New York, because I was born and raised there. I started acting and modeling when I was five or six, so I worked there.
Also, if you watch the film once, there are lots of things that you won't get because there are punch lines in the first act, the setup to which isn't until the second act.
'On the Road' is another one of those, a film in which the audience has a very clear idea of who they think your character is, so you know you are asking for it. But that's the challenge.
Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.
When I was a kid, which was just after Edison invented moving pictures, there were films that involved aliens coming to Earth for bad purposes.
It's interesting that people bring different things to oppressive and difficult situations, when they're reduced to the barest terms of survival. That's what provides tension in a lot of films.
I started with commercials - for shampoo, pancakes, insurance, Volvo. I did a Lux soap commercial with Sarah Jessica Parker. And I got a role in an indie film called 'Satellite' that did well in festivals.
