"I was obsessive about it. It was like USC film school or die. When I was thirteen, I started writing letters to the film school. I would send my super eight movies. So by the time I was eighteen and able to apply to USC, they all knew me." "I'll be honest with you, my goal of The Animal was: don't get fired. Because if I got fired, it was over. It meant I couldn't handle a film with the big boys. It was not a filmmaker's movie. It was extremely frustrating, but I was very fortunate to get that experience so early in my career. The Girl Next Door was the exact opposite experience. I was maniacally in control." "When my mom realized I seriously wanted to become a director, she wrote a letter to Steven Spielberg. I was sixteen years old and my mom wrote this letter saying, 'My son has wanted to be you since he was ten. It's all he wants to do and I've never seen a kid so passionate for a dream at such a young age.' She said, 'We don't know anyone in Hollywood, we don't know how the business works, can you please tell me if my son has what it takes?' With the letter she enclosed two of my super eight movies and a research paper I did on Spielberg. Well, she sent it to Amblin and forgot to include a return address. Even to this day we don't know how it worked out, but somehow, some way Steven read my mom's letter, was touched, watched my little super eight movies, and turned to his assistant and said, 'Find this kid.' Steven wrote me this heartfelt two-page handwritten letter. It changed my life. I still have it memorized. He wrote in the end, 'Your raw beginnings are so similar to my own, I know you'll make it. The next stage for you is film school.' And the most important part of that letter is when he gave me advice on how to reach audiences. What he was saying was, 'It's the 'truth in the telling' of stories that really reaches people.' I remember him saying these great stories can be found in your hometown and in your neighborhood. Basically he was saying Jaws, E.T., Poltergeist, these huge concept movies, what they're really about is how relevant they are to us as people and the relationships and the things we go through. That's why his movies have reached so many billions of people....I still keep the letter in the original UPS brown package in a drawer in my desk. He's definitely been a strong influence in my life."