JERRY WEINTRAUB

If you want to be in the world I live in, which is a creative world with new ideas, then you've got to get away from the norm. You've got to go for it.

It's been the structure of my life: you scheme and plan and try and fail and try again and accumulate and lose and win back, and then you tell.

I think if something's good and you believe in it, and you care about it, and you give it love and nurture it, it's going to happen.

I have a very big phone book and a very long reach around the world. And I think - I don't think, I know - that 95 percent of the people who I know who weren't born into success who have become successful and done things that are different and made a lot of money and had a lot of excitement in their life are people who never hear the word 'no.'

I learned I'm not a good executive, I'm an entrepreneur and I'm creative. I have to go with my gut and do what I want to do.

I make friends easily. I'm a gregarious guy, I'm open, I'm easy to get to know - I don't lock myself in an ivory tower. So I like people; I enjoy people.

I called my book 'When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead' because that's the truth. I will keep talking until the big hand comes down from Heaven. But I am a spiritual man and I believe that even that does not have to be the end.

The budgets are much higher now, it costs more to make a movie and the kids that go to see them are into instant gratification. They want things bigger and bigger. I don't make those kind of movies. I make movies about relationships.

I find a way to convince people to come along with me. They want to be persuaded. When I sit in a room with you I'm going to sell you something whether you want it or not. At the end you'll say: 'I'm glad I bought that.'

People don't understand this, but I started very young, and I became very, very successful at a very young age. By the time I was 26 years old, I was a multimillionaire. And I started with nothing. And I was on the road 10, 11 months a year.

When I found something I believed in and I cared about and thought I could market and sell and could be thought of creatively - the most important thing to me - I did it.

'Liberace's a great film. It's a great piece of material. I have a great script and it's a great score.

When you reach my age, you understand that you are a player with skin in the game, no matter what game it is.

Will Smith is fantastic.

Britain produces great actors because they learn on stage so know their stuff when they get on a movie set.

I like Scott Caan. I think he's a great young kid. I think he's gonna have a really huge career.

I'm a guy who shakes your hand and will never let you down. I have a code of honor and I don't lie.

I'm an independent, probably. I'm not dogmatic. I've supported Democrats and Republicans.

I've had great luck with directors. I've worked with all the great ones.

When I was a young boy, very young boy, mothers didn't work. Women were home, they took care of the house, they washed the dishes and took care of the children. That's what they did, and that's what my mother did.

Pauline Kael had seen Nashville, and she loved Nashville. When I called her, she immediately responded to me because we had become friends, and I told her how great this film was, and she told me, "Well, I'll have to see it for myself." So I showed it to her, and she flipped.

I am persistent about everything I believe in. If there's a film I want to do, a record, a Broadway show - I do it. Everybody can hate it but I will still do it. I am fearless that way.

I'm a good party guest...the problem is, I feel like I'm working all the time. "Give us an Elvis Presley story! Give us a Frank Sinatra story!"

I can do anything - but that doesn't mean I should do that. I need to enjoy what I do. I enjoy making movies.

Money! They go together. Franchise; money. Money; franchise.