Music has always helped my films. In 'The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion,' you can hear 'Sunrise' by Glenn Miller, an idol of my childhood, in the surprise ending. I like mixing comedy with suspense and action.
Carrying The Beatles' or the Sixties' dream around all your life is like carrying the Second World War and Glenn Miller around. That's not to say you can't enjoy Glenn Miller or The Beatles, but to live in that dream is the twilight zone. It's not living now. It's an illusion.
Music and comedy, musical comedy, specifically, really helped me through my childhood. I felt out of place, I felt lots of adversity, and I felt scared all the time.
I still don't understand why the tag of 'action hero' follows me. My films have all these elements - romance, action and comedy. None of the fight sequences of my character is an act of randomness. There's a reason to action in my films.
Hosting 'SNL' was something I'd always wanted to do. The show allowed me to play to my strengths - mixing music with comedy seemed like a way into that world.
I think that band [Glenn Miller] was the beginning of the end. It was a mechanized version of what they called jazz music. I still can't stand to listen to it.
Films do have suspense and tensions and scares and jumps, and I like to write things that have both in them, comedy and horror, but sometimes they are hard to balance.
When I make a film, the mixing process is very long, and you hear and watch the material in every form, so that totally shreds your ability to perceive it. So after the mixing, there's no way I can have the emotions or the reactions to my films in the same way.
I am not considering shifting my image from action to comedy or romantic comedy. I have done or am doing films which are action-oriented: comedy roles and romantic-comedy roles.
Obviously neither 'American Idol' nor 'Dancing With the Stars' is a variety show in the classic sense, but the way they incorporate elements of drama, comedy and suspense is moderately ingenious.
Do you know the story of the scorpion and the frog? You know, the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the river, because the scorpion promises not to sting him. And then the scorpion stings the frog, half way across the river. The drowning frog asks him why he did it, when they'll both drown, and the scorpion says that he's a scorpion, and it's his nature to sting.
Audiences like me doing action and comedy. I am a jovial person and have been so from childhood. I like to laugh my way through my work, and that attitude reflects in my roles. Even women hate me doing rona-dhona roles. So I don't do emotional films.
I like the idea of building the suspense and taking it all the way up to the very last second with the suspense, and right when you think you can't take it anymore, then you come in with the joke and kind of break the tension. To me, that's the best kind of film. I like thrillers, so thrillers with comedy, to me, is always the best.
Glenn Gould was my hero. Glenn Gould was my idol. I loved him.
I don't think it's ever changed, whether its Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Zeppelin, Guns n' Roses or anyone today, the reason why you get into music is because you love it, and if you're good at it, that's a plus.
Really I'm a fan of any movie, whether it's suspense, action, or comedy, anything that has a good story.
Really I'm a fan of any movie, whether it's suspense, action, or comedy - anything that has a good story.