Yes, I was hired by Universal because they needed a comedy director. They had seen Scandal and liked it. I saw an opportunity even in those comedies to begin my project of American films.
Clearly, if we'd had the kind of computer graphics capability then that we have now, the Star Gate sequence would be much more complex than flat planes of light and color.
When there's no technical problems, if you did the right casting, and the scene is well written, the actor will give you a strong performance with his intuition right from the start.
I never went to school for directing. I studied theater with a director. I followed plays to see how a director would talk to the actors. I tried to make my own school.
I only knew a few people, literally a handful of people, al of whom had been in the Party long before I was, all of whom were known by the FBI and were known to the Committee.
I have criticisms of Ronald Reagan, but he lives in another universe from the kind of political theater that is represented by people, like Sarah Palin, who aren't really public servants.
The Tea Party is a group that rejects deep thinking, it rejects the very complex analysis that is involved in public policy, it rejects the kind of textured decision-making that Ronald Reagan prided himself on.
My guilty pleasures tend to be weird, old shows that I find on channel 20 that I've never seen before like 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' or the 'Planet of the Apes' TV show.
The 'Lost' pilot was wide enough and included enough things so that when Season Five came, and we spent half of the year in 1973, nobody cried foul. It felt like it was already a part of the DNA.
The two favorite episodes of 'Lost' that Adam and I wrote were 'Dave,' which was where Hurley has an imaginary friend, and 'Trisha Tanaka is Dead,' where Hurley finds a van and starts it.
I'm going to take care of you. I gotcha. Because that's my job, right? Taking care of my pain in the ass little brother.
I think the last one would have to be The Godfather because it was such a powerful story. There was lots of violence in it but I could take it because I thought there was a reality to it. It wasn't gratuitous, it was just these guys' story.
I felt, selfishly, that if there was going to be a TV show about 'Hannibal Lecter' whether I was going to be involved or not, I'd rather be involved. I wanted to make sure it was something I wanted to watch.
There is evidence that people do want to watch shows back to back - that's why DVR use is so high. When you're able to DVR something, people will watch more than one episode.
The evil of storytelling is you're trying to make the audience complicit in murder - 'Kill the guy! Jump him!' And then once you've done it, it's like, 'I've killed this guy, now what?'
I really hate the creature film convention that says you have to wait until the end to see the monster. One hour and all you've seen is just the tip of the creature's tail.
Until the end of elementary school, I lived in a suburban area, so the type of village I used to live in is borderline between village and the city, so I'm familiar with the rustic environment.
When you first think of making a monster movie you have to realize that a lot of people may be down on you because there is a big prejudice against such films.
Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.
I played Little League for one year. That was it. Then my mother realized I liked books and threatened my father. I owe her forever for that.
I'm just ah, actually developing a tv show for HBO, and I'm directing a film this summer, and actually I'm doing some live shows out in western Canada.
