Choreography is mentally draining but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.

I'm intrigued by films that have a singular vision behind them. A lot of studio movies have ten writers by the time they're done. You have a movie testing 200 times making adjustments according to various people's opinions. It's difficult to have an undistilled vision.

The core of the movie business remains intact and it's not descending in scope. Studios want movies that are bigger than ever.

All studio movies are the middle of the Bell curve. The only way to do something is to do it yourself. And the only way to do that is to not take any money from anyone or take as little money as possible from anyone and that's it.

I don't watch the movies I make so I haven't seen 'Footloose' since it came out. You see this young hungry actor it's pretty fun. I was the only one they screen tested. It was an attempt by the director and producer to talk the head of the studio into hiring me because they didn't want me.

I was at the end of the studio system so when I walked into movies I had a magnificent suite in which I had a living room and a kitchen and a complete makeup room. I had everything just for me. With the independents you're kind of roughing it literally.

I just feel like with independent movies... they're really free to do whatever they want. They're not afraid to make a statement about anything and there's not a huge studio behind them making sure that everything is wholesome and politically correct and all that.

In a lot of movies especially big studio ones they're not constructed in any other way than to get people to like them and then tell their friends. It's a product.

When I was a little kid - and even still - I loved magic tricks. When I saw how movies got made - at least had a glimpse when I went on the Universal Studios tour with my grandfather I remember feeling like this was another means by which I could do magic.

There's this index that tallies up how much your movies have made and if they haven't grossed a certain amount then you're not bankable. I know I'm not Will Smith but you know my ranking's pretty low. The only studio picture I've done is 'Zodiac ' and that didn't perform that well.