My first film out of the gate was financially so successful that I guess, being in Hollywood, you get kind of put into a certain box.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Hollywood's famous for putting you in a box.
Every movie that I've had to really knock down the door for has been an enormous success for me. Not just like a financial success but a real personal success.
There's always gonna be people with a lot of money making film, and the goal is to make profit and carry on. It is a business. The goal is to make a living doing it and to be comfortable.
My first in, my first break, was I met a director and got to talking with her, and she happened to be casting this movie that she had written. That was ten years ago. That got me to Hollywood. I got paid $700 bucks.
I really don't consider myself to be a conventional Hollywood star. I've never really been marketed by the big studios to do mass market box office films.
Well, I started thinking about what you were saying about how your movies need to make a profit. Now, what is the one thing, if you put it in a movie, it'll be successful?
The way Hollywood works, you're never sure if their first thought is to make a great film and honor the material or just another business property.
Curiously enough, I was one of the first to have some say in Hollywood. By sheer accident, I had four successes in a row in the early 30's and, although I was still in my 20's, I demanded and received approval of cast, story and director. I don't know how I got away with it, but I did!
Box office success has never meant anything. I couldn't get a film made if I paid for it myself. So I'm not 'box office' and never have been, and that's never entered into my kind of mind set.
The effort always remains that my new film outdoes my last in terms of performance and gets better box office success. Box office is the sole reason why I do films.