My first few films were institutional comedies, and you're on pretty safe ground when you're dealing with an institution that vast numbers of people have experienced: college, summer camp, the military, the country club.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I had done student films for the School Of Visual Arts and for NYU and all these schools in New York, so those were my first film experiences, but they were student films, so I guess they don't really count.
I just remember when I came out of film school - and I loved film school - that the industry was such a mystery. How to break in, and once you are in, how to make a film; that is such a large undertaking. There are thousands of pitfalls.
Even in college I tended to get cast in the comedies more. It was what I liked doing.
I love film, but it's funny going to drama school for three years, where you spend most of your time training for theatre, then coming out and just doing films.
We had a great dramatic society in school, and that's where I first got exposure both as an actor and director.
I never studied film formally at school, but as a kid, I spent most of my time in cinemas.
There was a year between school and getting going as an actor when I basically just watched films. Video shops were the new thing, and there was a good one round the corner and me and my brother just watched everything, from the horror to the European art-house.
I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society.
I never had any film training. I went to Northwestern. I studied education and theater. So it was all theater training.
I did my first film when I was in the final year of my graduation. At that time, I was still a kid, and I couldn't read the industry very well.