Quotes

[on writing The Last Chase (1981)]: I started thinking about the energy crisis and how it could really change the kind of life we know. Auto racing would be one of the first things to go. The energy crisis could stop this wonderful sport I'm involved in. A world without racing, horrible.

When you write a screenplay it can take six months, and there's a real drudgery to it. But this (Nightmares (1983)) was a ball.

As a director you have the ability to kind of feed off of the many ideas and energies of others.

I've always been a fan of the cop thriller genre, but the problem with it is that it's been done absolutely to death, and the urban landscape has been explored endlessly.

I wanted to do Saigon (1988) for a long time before Platoon (1986) came out, my whole generation wants to do movies about the Vietnam experience. But before Platoon, the studios didn't want to know. Platoon opened the door.

If you have a bad day, generally you're carried by all those other creative people you're working with, but if you have a bad day as a writer, nothing goes on.

If someone tries to act phony, either literally or figuratively there's always someone around to say "What are you doing? I went to fifth grade with you and I know you're not like this".

On the inspiration for Whispers in the Dark (1992): I wanted to explore the business of psychiatry, I thought by its nature it's a very dramatic arena, fraught with tugs and pulls, and all kinds of directions, I wanted to explore that.

Whispers in the Dark (1992) did better in Europe than here.

[on having two of his scripts hit the big screen in one year]: "That's a pretty good batting average in Hollywood, the ratio is 40-1, and those are studio development projects, not the spec (unsolicited) stuff".

[on working with Annabella Sciorra: There's a glamour about her that comes from a different source than most of the glamour we see in Hollywood, there's something both vulnerable and strong about her.