It was fun to play that surreal high school life [in Jawbreaker]. I was a huge fan of the movie Heathers. But I think at the time - you know, when the movie was released, it was a very limited release, and it didn't do very well at the box office. And I love the fact that it has found legs and that the audience has kept growing and growing over the years.
Christian audience, I think, have grown very tired of movies that try to pander to them. For instance if someone goes, "Ok, we're designing what we're going to do with this movie. It's a Christian movie and they'll eat it up." And you know what? Consumers are smarter than that. They go, "The movie isn't that great and he thought that I would just be a sucker and plop my $10 down for it?" Because you're looking down at the audience. You can't pander to an audience.
I love watching a movie that is smart, that makes me think, that includes me as an audience member, and I especially love it when I know that the people that I'm working with also do that.
I think about the audience in the sense that I serve as my own audience. I have to please myself the way, if I saw the movie in a theater, I would be pleased. Do I think about catering to an audience? No.
I don't mind reminding people it's a movie, or that you're telling a story. Everybody knows this, but for some reason, we want to be real. I don't get it, I like the fakeness of my craft. I don't think the audience minds-they all know we're making a movie.
I think the audience doesn't know a movie's lit, but they feel it. Because you've walked in a forest many times, or in a park, so you know how it looks. When you start lighting, subconsciously you know there is something that is absolutely wrong.
Actually, for me, I really love to do action movie. You know, most people, they know, they thought that I am a martial artist. I don't know why, but I love to do kung fu movie, you know?
I was also a fan of the first one Saw movie. I knew there was a danger in doing the sequel, especially like this. They have such a core audience for the Saw movies. The fans of the movie actually demanded a sequel. They were on the internet going crazy. I don't even go on the internet. I don't even know how all this stuff happens. But they wanted it and one the one hand that's good, because you know there's an audience.
The movies have been so rank the last couple of years that when I see people lining up to buy tickets I sometimes think that the movies aren't drawing an audience - they're inheriting an audience. People just want to go to a movie. They're stung repeatedly, yet their desire for a good movie - for any movie - is so strong that all over the country they keep lining up.
I think I'm better wired for television. I love variety as far as a project. I'm easily bored and the schedule of a television show, it just keeps you going. I love theater and I think doing a sitcom in front of a live audience is the closest you can get to theater, and it's really the best mix of like standup and theater, is really a sitcom. I started as a standup and I still continue to do that as well, so I think I'm just a TV guy and happy for it. I think my movie career is kind of like my social life, I'm picky and not in demand. So it perhaps is working out.
I've always thought of the audience. I just want to entertain the audience. That's what it's about: what's good for the movie, what's best for the movie, what's best for the audience.
I've learned that you never have to think about how to make money. You need only to focus on what you think is going to be a good movie or what's a movie I'd like to watch as the audience.
You want the audience to get your movie, and you want the audience to like it. It's as simple as that. If they don't understand what you're trying to say, you've failed. Of course, you can't get 100 percent of the crowd to understand the movie, but you know when you've reached the people you want to reach.
All of Europe is tremendously integrated now; perhaps from all those years of colonization. Everybody that they've colonized has come to the mainland, so you'll have a racially diverse audience as well. You'll have many Middle Easterners, Asians, Africans, from seven to ninety sitting in the audience, and the really incredible thing is that they all know the music. I don't mean they just know a song here and there. They know the music. They are a very educated audience.
Somebody said to me, in a very well-meaning way, at a screening, "We love the movie but it's too violent. If you tone down the violence you could reach a great audience of kids.".
'Instructions Not Included' is proving that there is a huge Latin market that needs a special project. They love seeing their own people; they want to see themselves onscreen. In my case, I know them pretty well. I know what they laugh at. I think it's going to open a lot of doors, this movie.