After my 1985 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, I was wooed by producers in Hollywood, who told me they wanted to turn my act into a sitcom.
I live a very international life, but when I come back to Hollywood, a town I love in a lot of ways, I have to wonder, "What decade are you in? Like, seriously, what decade? It's not this one."
Hollywood is all about making an entrance. I don't want to be a walking advertisement for anyone other than myself.
It's not just people in Hollywood: I'm sure everyone in the world thinks, 'What would be it like if I won an Oscar?
It's like everybody is obsessed with Hollywood movies worldwide. And even though everybody hates the Americans, they're still watching American movies.
I'm not saying that it's wrong to make huge Hollywood films but it's just a different kind of feeling, a different sort of pleasure.
It's the same the world over. A Hollywood production comes to town, and the locals all turn movie crazy.
The buried code of many American films has become: If I kill you, I have won and you have lost. The instinctive ethical code of traditional Hollywood, the code by which characters like James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda lived, has been lost.
I went back to Holland and I thought 'Ok, now I made so many movies in Hollywood, I know how special effects work, how to do action for not a lot of money, and I have all of these skills now.' It was something in Holland that nobody dared to touch.
I am not successful, in terms of Hollywood.
The normal Hollywood approach is to have a super-charged production company and then go to the studios for distribution and marketing.
Everyone applauds each other's success in Hollywood because they know how tough it is, but it really comes down fundamentally to the process.
I look at going to Hollywood as going behind enemy lines. You parachute in, set up the explosion, then fly out before it goes off.
It seems everyone in Hollywood is getting pinched, lifted and pulled. I'm looking weird because I'm not.
Times change; Hollywood is not the same as it was when I first entered the business. It felt to me like it was starting to narrow down and centralize itself around what would... make money.
It's all about greed and money and it's the driving force in Hollywood.
The problem for independent filmmakers is that huge companies control all the promotion, all the advertising. Hollywood films' advertising budgets are as large as their shooting budgets.
Many of us had this idea of doing independent film, of making personal, relevant films, as opposed to Hollywood fluff. I directed a few.
Hollywood is tripping over its own feet.
I just don't like the whole Hollywood thing.
If you've got a huge Hollywood star in your film, they're getting $32 million, and everyone else gets their bus fare.
Movies in general are more generic. If something sells just make more. That's Hollywood.
I consider myself a student of Hollywood.
Because someone stole Gregory Peck's star on Hollywood Blvd., I have hired a Brink's guard to protect my star!
If the Indian people want stories written about themselves, how they want them told, they are going to have to make them, they're going to have to finance them. If you let Hollywood do it, Hollywood is going to get it wrong most of the time.
