The only way to ensure a film is going to sell is put Will Smith in it and you open it in 3,000 theaters and make sure we have all the top promotional spots in each venue.
The first movie I can remember seeing in the theater was 'Return of the Jedi.' I can remember seeing Darth Vader's helmet come off. The shock of that moment.
I have been to the theater more since I have lived in New York than I ever really did in London working on a television show.
So many people of my generation all grew up with that shock theater package on television of 'Frankenstein,' 'Wolfman,' 'Dracula,' 'Mummy,' all the Universal stuff.
New York - The city where the people from Oshkosh look at the people from Dubuque in the next theater seats and say "These New Yorkers don't dress any better than we do.
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.
Broadway has the most savvy audience anywhere. They see everything and they know their theater. As sophisticated and subtle as you think you can be, the houses you get here will want something finer.
I'd had the theater background for so long that I know that world inside out; I just didn't know the pace of how a TV set works, like how a show shoots.
Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through.
I've been so spoiled in the theater, writing plays where I can just do exactly what I want and nobody messes with me.
Most of my career up until the last couple of years has basically been a training ground for me. Actors that came up in the '50s and '60s, they had the theater, and television was in its infancy.
Theater is still a medium which attracts young writers. You'd think that it would be all over by now, with television and film. But it's not.
I think the wonderful thing about doing theater is that it's more of an actor's medium. I think that film is more of a director's medium. You can't edit something out on stage. It's there.
There's something about the impact of a big screen that means something to me, even though I realize almost every film is fated to be seen for a year in theaters, and then forever after on television.
I actually studied in college, for the three semesters that I stayed in school, I don't recommend that, but I studied theater, and in high school I was involved in the drama department.
After that, I started going downtown and doing a lot of theater shows in Chicago. When you go downtown there, it's like you're in New York, it's like going to Broadway.
Unfortunately I put the opening date on the 5th of December 1941 and on the 7th of December the Japanese bombarded Pearl Harbour. My dream of a theater in Washington D.C. came to a prompt end.
Whenever I open a movie, I go secretly to the theater and stand in the back and enjoy the moment. I laugh when people laugh, and when people cry, I laugh.
In theater, you sometimes can only do one or two jobs a year because they're long periods. In film, you can shoot so many. It's quite interesting.
Live television drama was like live theater, because you moved without thinking about the camera. It followed you around. In film you have to be more aware of what the camera is doing.
I tried softball and soccer. I just didn't take as much of a liking to it as I did sitting in a movie theater and watching people recreate a story, and doing it myself, as well.
