GREG MOTTOLA

I feel like I came from a generation where... We didn't have Vietnam. We didn't have World War II. Nothing cultural was thrust upon us to make men out of us, so you're kind of free to not grow up that way if you don't want to.

Some scenes comes together really quickly, and some scenes are disasters that take forever. But it sort of works itself out over time.

I have alopecia. My hair fell out when I was in college and I didn't take it so well.

To me, it's important to try and make an emotional connection with the audience.

I certainly did work at an amusement park. In 1985. Wow - I'm in denial about the year. I was in college, and I had no skills.

Having grown up in a Catholic family, while I felt like I was never conscious of any blatant anti-Semitism, I was aware of a slightly insidious, us-versus-them mentality. A lot of my best friends and early girlfriends were Jewish, and I encountered what was more of a suburban small-mindedness, of people needing to defend their tribe.

When you're a young person, the solace one can get from popular music is something I just have tremendous nostalgia for, affection for. I still have it.

I think I am attracted to that time in life when your worldview is still forming in small ways.

I can't seem to escape comedy. Whenever I sit down and try to write something serious, it just doesn't work.

'Duel' is one of the greatest suspense films of all time.

When I read a script, I always - the first question I ask myself is, 'Is there something that I could bring to it that maybe the next guy wouldn't?' Because I've read a lot of very good scripts and thought there are people who could do this better than I.

The truth is, good actors are always looking to do something different. They are dying to play slightly odder characters or work on movies that aren't straight down the middle.

It's like I'm thin skinned, I guess, but I thought I could never write about my youth for the longest time. It took getting to my forties before I could even look back on it.

The joke is that no matter how much we think we can evolve, we'll never escape our limitations.

I specialize in movies that people say are underrated, with the exception of 'Superbad.'

I like writing, but it really can be a struggle for me.

When I first saw 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High,' I thought: That's what my life is like. That's my day-to-day.

I remember on my very first film, which Steven Soderberg executive-produced, he said, 'Try not to repeat yourself. Do things that scare you.' Even if it's a challenge, I want people to say that this guy tried this thing. Hopefully he learned from it.

The crazy thing about independent filmmaking is that you're so judged on your first film. It almost needs to be one of those groundbreaking 'I've-never-seen-that-before'-type movies.

My first-ever job in the movie business, I was an art student at Carnegie Mellon, and they were shooting the movie 'Gung Ho' in Pittsburgh, and I worked as an extra for a few days. Michael Keaton bumped into me in one scene, and it's in the movie. And I worshipped him.

The Holy Grail audience are young people and, at the end of the day, that's who gets courted.

I don't like high concept movies very much, and the kind of scripts that I would occasionally get offered tended to be really high concept comedies or romantic comedies. I just don't like it. I like much more realistic movies with actual psychology and behavior in them.

I had always thought my fantasy career would be making indie films and doing my own thing. But then 'Superbad' came along, and it totally changed everything. It was so hilarious and smart and extreme; you could probably do a psychoanalysis term paper on the male sexual psyche going on there.

I have some pride in the things I've done, but I'm pretty hard on myself. Part of looking at my old work is to motivate me to try harder.

I'm not someone who's gone to Comic Con as a devotee.