I'm not a film-school guy. I was a high-school dropout. I was on a nuclear submarine. I was an electrician. I was a house painter.

A movie is a certain thing by definition. There's nothing wrong with knocking out a good genre picture.

'Colors' is pretty good. It takes you inside the cop car bit. I like reality myself. I like reality-based kind of movies.

Genre expectations can kill creativity. If you do something different, it will get hated. The best filmmakers can do everything on the approval list and knock it out of the park. For me, I have a hard time being creative when I have to color in between the lines.

I think nothing has been filmed as much as World War II.

I'm a big fan of Italian neo-realism and all of that stuff.

Actors are like magicians. They'll sit there and do all their tricks to each other. It's very competitive, and the goal is to get them bonding, to get them to know the real person as quickly as possible.

Actors want to act. I think a lot of times what happens is that they're expected to bring it all. Probably because I'm a writer, I'm not telling them what to do. I just provide them with as much as I can.

'Sabotage' was an opportunity. That was journeyman work, but the irony is I learned more off that movie on what filmmaking is and isn't than everything else combined. A lot of lessons, and it will impact me for the rest of my career.

'Sabotage' was a work for hire. It wasn't my original idea or script or anything.