I feel like comedy is where I'm most at ease, but I also have an allergy to silly jokes.
Any time I hear certain songs I put in a movie, I have to not listen to them anymore because I associate them with that movie. They take on that association rather than the association I had when I first heard them. So it's kinda bittersweet to put a song in a movie, honestly.
I have a cameo in every movie. In '50/50,' I'm in the back of the bus.
I used to drive a convertible around L.A. a lot.
I really like it when movies take a song and use it to counterpoint a scene.
Usually, the kills are almost Wile E. Coyote kind of things in horror movies.
I'm a writer and director. And the movie I've seen a million times is 'Coming Home,' directed by Hal Ashby and starring Jon Voight, Jane Fonda and Bruce Dern.
I've been a huge fan of Hal Ashby forever. And I think that the distinctive thing about 'Coming Home' is the love story, and how - kind of emotionally real it is, and how these two characters allow each other to see their - kind of vulnerabilities. And it's great because it's a love story that's not really that cheesy, either.
I used to obsess on critical reactions to my films, and it's really not a healthy way to live your life, so my new take on it is simply, 'I hope people like it!' I'm not going to be looking at the tomato meter for at least a year! I was very lucky on '50/50' that most critics really liked it.
I like to branch out as much as I can, but I feel like the movies that are closest to my heart are 'The Wackness' and '50/50' - the ones that are dramedies that have that human element to them.
As a director, your expectation and reality don't always match up, and I think that that's... I think it's a little jarring.
I was Paul Schrader's assistant for six months before I went to film school, and he's very much about knowing what's going to happen on every page before you even start writing dialogue - the entire plot and character arcs are mapped out.
I'm always walking around with headphones on, creating my own soundtracks to whatever the day is. I think I have a poppy sensibility.
I like zombie movies, and I like genre movies a lot. To watch. Less so to make, I think. But I grew up on that stuff. I would just grow up watching a lot of horror movies, a lot of slasher movies and then zombie movies.
I don't like being pigeonholed at all. It stemmed from after 'Mandy Lane': I was being offered all these horror movies. I love horror movies, but when I dreamed of being a director, it was always doing all sorts of things.
For whatever reason, the films I gravitate towards do have these strange sort of tonal balances to them... I kind of realized on '50/ 50' why I liked these blending of tones, because I think it's kind of what life is like: funny one minute, sad the next, scary the next.
I think it's cyclical. Zombies have been around for ages, and vampires have run their course; we've had so many vampire movies.
I learned some big lessons on my first film, a horror film which was never released in the U.S., even though we sold it to Harvey Weinstein for a lot of money.
