Well I grew up in the Midwest, and I think the first film that blew my mind was 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was 8 years old, I saw 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' in Charlotte, North Carolina. I walked out of there and was so inspired. I loved the movie, and I knew I wanted to be that guy.
'Raiders of the Lost Ark' made me want to make films. I am wild about the films of John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, Howard Hawks and Sam Peckinpah.
I had a really generic upbringing, I think, when it comes to viewing movies as a kid. I didn't really know what was out there or what was being tried. I was, like, 'E.T.' and 'Indiana Jones.' Those were the only things I knew existed.
I grew up on Mel Brooks films. That was film to me until I got a little bit older and realised there were other kinds of movies.
I grew up in the '80s. I was a kid, but all my favorite movies came out of that period.
When I left Ohio when I was 17 and ended up in New York and realised that not all films had the giant crab monsters in them, it really opened up a lot of things for me.
'Jaws' was the definitive filmmaking turning point for me. It came out in the summer of '75 and I saw it an obsessive 55 times. They even ran a very embarrassing article about me in the local paper, about the weird kid who's seen 'Jaws' 55 times.
I remember when first, Stripes, and then Animal House came out - which I was really proud of, even though it was kind of loose and quite raucous - there were imitative movies that were not quite as good.
The first movie I really clicked with was 'Die Hard' when I was 6 years old, which is crazy that I was watching it that young. That was the one that made me want to become an actor.
My dad took me to my first movie. It was 'The Greatest Show on Earth' in 1952, a movie of such scale it was actually a traumatic experience.