I started in theater; I did theater in New York for 14 years before I even thought about doing movies - I never thought about being in a film; it just never occurred to me.
I've always loved the Bond pictures. I have watched every single one. Movies don't get bigger or better than Bond, so I knew this was my opportunity to do a massive action picture with outrageous stunts.
I didn't know anything about movies or movie stars or the Academy or anything. I was just a blank sheet of paper. I was totally ignorant of all that stuff. I never went to the movies, didn't know anything about the movies.
I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I'd written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.
I never wanted to do the same kind of movies over and over anyway, so my theory on it all is I'm just gonna try and dodge the label and keep doing what I am doing.
This is the problem with language, and this is what makes silent movies fun, because the connection with them, me or the audience is not with the language. There's no question of interpretation of what we are saying it's just about feeling. You creat...
Well, it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.
It's very weird about movies: you never know which ones are going to stay alive and which one are going to be meaningless. When you're there, you couldn't possibly predict it. Some things slowly die, and others slowly stay a while.
Stand-up keeps you on your toes because it's instant. With TV and movies, you have to wait for the numbers to come in to see what happened at the box office. With stand-up, it's right there, that night, in your face.
Really interesting genre films, especially monster movies, evoke the fears of the times intentionally. Our starting point was 'Godzilla' - the original movie was released less than 10 years after Hiroshima, and it's a classic in Japan.
It's crazy when you think about the 'Apes' franchise and how dark all of the endings are and how dark the movies are, and yet there's something very pleasurable about these movies. It really comes down to the potency of this idea, of seeing intellige...
I knew nothing about the independent film industry. I didn't know much about the industry itself. All I knew was how to watch movies, how to enjoy them, how to hate them, how not to like them.
You can be mediocre, the way most actors are, and you can still be a top movie star, even if your movies are boring and predictable. All you have to do is know how to sell yourself, let yourself be manufactured.
I worked on three independent movies in close succession and... I really learned from those directors how to stay on budget, make your days, get it done, keep everyone happy, which is a huge thing in a movie, and to steer the ship.
So, I was sitting there and I watched 'Paranormal Activity' and I was like, 'Boy, white people do dumb stuff in movies.' So I was like, 'Why don't they just leave the house... What if paranormal activity happened to a black couple?'
Since I do seven different styles of martial arts, I don't foresee myself fighting the same in any two movies. I think every fighting style should fit the character that's doing the fighting.
I want to make all kinds of movies. I do want to make big movies that are a lot of fun to go to, but I also want to make movies that are going to stimulate some thought and maybe raise some awareness.
And what I like about it is it makes me happy and I think it makes a lot of people happy to go to the movies and to not think about the problems of the day or the problems of tomorrow or the yesterday and just go on for the ride and have the fun of l...
I like movies where you feel like you're going into another world, and no matter how many times you watch it, you're gonna see something new in that world. That level of detail really inspires me.
The only thing I find difficult to watch - horror movies - not that I don't like them. Like 'The Shining,' it's one of my favorite movies, but it's terrifying. I feel like I've watched a marathon afterwards.
When I'm creating characters, I just want to create characters that I can relate to, and be as honest about them as people as I can be. That's what I want to see when I go to the movies.
