When James Cameron brought me the script, which I developed with both Cameron and Jay Cocks, I wanted to make it a thriller, an action film, but with a conscience, and I found that it had elements of social realism.
When he brought it to me four years ago, Rodney King had just arrived, I was involved in the clean-up of L.A. and I guess it was part of my experience.
I began to exercise a lot of cinematic muscle with the precepts I had learned in the New York art world. Film was intriguing. I began to think of art as elitist; film was not.
