I grew up in a place that felt very integrated.
Sometimes I feel that 'Footloose' is the rite of passage.
I began to think that there was a place for 'Footloose' to get retold again, that there was actually a more conducive political climate, an emotional climate to explore a town that has experienced a trauma and a shock, and starts overreacting.
I was chubby and awkward, and the only way I could really meet girls was to join children's theater, so that's what I did.
I got a Walkman, I had the 'Footloose' soundtrack and I danced to it constantly.
I'm surprised by how many people have not seen 'Footloose.'
And out of all the movies, I don't know what it is, I'll always sit down and watch our 'Footloose'. I cry, I get excited, I cheer, my heart pounds. I really enjoy it.
I wouldn't take on the project unless I could have complete creative control in casting.
I think that there's a particular type of person who goes into children's theater, and then goes into theater in high school. There was something about the guys I knew in theater, we were all very vulnerable. You could tell that at some point we were made fun of.
I was raised a Southern Baptist, and my whole family were Christians. However, my Dad was really into science and astronomy, so I felt very balanced. I still had respect for faith.
There's something really special for a young person to sit in an audience and discover somebody, and it's rare to do because so much of a movie's economics are based on pre-existing actors or actresses.
I've done movies where I've had to cast actors and teach them to rap, and cast rappers and teach them to act.
That movie was my girlfriend. That was my girl." I knew there was going to be initial anger. As a matter of fact, when I was deciding to do Footloose that was one of the first things that I had to realize. First of all, I had to figure out a human connection to it but then I also had to reconcile that I was going to get beat up a little bit on this a little bit.
You write a screenplay and then everybody is going to want to get in on it and we have to figure that out. I've written three screenplays that are at studios and I still haven't been making them yet so there is always something that is either going to trip something up or maybe get another pass.
