When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.
I loved Alien, and I loved Carrie, and I loved The Exorcist - those were big movies for me. They were just brilliantly done, and unusual, and they all took horror to some new place.
It's fine to do movies and say, 'We made big grosses,' but you've got to go back and ask, 'How much did it cost?' and 'Where do you make your profit?'
When people say they take hits and flops in their stride, I personally feel that they are just lying. Of course, I'm upset when my movies flop. I take it very personally.
When I was a kid I used to go to the movies, double features in outdoor theaters, and my parents used to take us to see like, 'Cat On a Hot Tin Roof' or something like that, with Elizabeth Taylor.
When I was growing up, I was the most pretentious person I have ever met. I only read obscure books and watched obscure movies and only listened to obscure music.
My fan following is intact. They only like to see me in movies, which I am still doing for them. I do not need to do any long interviews or chat shows.
I think it is important for girls to see movies where it is not all just about 'the boy' or it's simply being about 'the relationship' or 'Am I pretty enough?' or 'Am I cute enough?'.
Steven Spielberg was my idol growing up. I knew that all of his movies have a very specific message and point of view, and the always are really epic.
Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies, then yes, that's true, big-time success. If not, it's much ado about nothing.
Not only do I have to live, right, I have to get some cash for my troubles - it's a scary thing, and people need to start to think about the messages that they send in the movies.
You know what, it's a time honored tradition in movies in America that if you kill enough people in your 30s and 40s and 50s that by the time you get into your 60s you become loveable.
I really like the half-hour comedy. I really do. I know people that are in movies all the time and they, you know, they don't see their families as much. And that takes its toll over time.
Since I was 4, Julia Roberts has inspired me. I thought if I liked her enough, I'd become as pretty as her. That didn't happen, but I was obsessed and watched her movies over and over.
I watch comic book movies. Give me 'The Avengers,' give me 'Thor', those are my area. But I don't watch comedies.
Usually people like to categorise artists. With my films, I categorise people: if I know which one of my movies you like, I can tell which kind of a person you are.
I usually do get the tomboy parts in the movies, which is kind of like me, but not totally. I like to shop as much as Ashley, but she is a little more of a girlie-girl than me.
I do like the zombie movies quite a bit. I know there are purist zombie guys that don't like the running zombies, but I dig the infected thing. I think that's a scarier incorporation of an element into the genre.
My favorite scene in all of movies is Gregory Peck in 'To Kill A Mockingbird': You see him where he's on the porch, and his face is almost completely obscured. I don't want to see his face.
In a weird way, if you look at all the 'Apes' movies, they all seem like different stories in the same universe. 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' is definitely a continuation, but the other ones jump all around chronologically.
Years ago I realized that maybe I made mistake, politically, when I turned a lot of that stuff down. I would go off to obscure places and make movies that six people went to see.
