Every house has to have rules - even 'Animal House.'
My first place in Nashville was like 'Animal House.' The whole band lived under one roof, and most nights the jam sessions ended close to sunrise.
I turned down 'American Gigolo.' There are many films - like 'Ghostbusters' - that I turned down... The first one I did was 'Foul Play' with Goldie Hawn, but I turned down 'Animal House' - I turned that down.
I don't want to make an 'Animal House.' I'm not interested in making 'Ghost Busters.'
The first comedy screenplay that I wrote was Animal House and I always thought I could and should be a director but no one was about to give me that opportunity on Animal House.
I really only worked for about a month on 'Meatballs.' What happened was that Ivan Reitman figured out that studios wanted to meet everybody involved with 'Animal House' except the producer. So he thought he'd better start directing.
I remember when first, Stripes, and then Animal House came out - which I was really proud of, even though it was kind of loose and quite raucous - there were imitative movies that were not quite as good.
My first student film was Orientation, which was basically the set-up for Animal House. There are a couple of scenes that we later borrowed in some form.
We got some devastating reviews on Animal House at the start.
First, I wanted to be Chris Farley. When I was growing up, Chris Farley was still on the stages and fun to us. In my house, John Belushi was king. I didn't grow up when he was - I was born in '78 - the reruns of Belushi in 'Animal House,' and knowing he was at Second City, he was viewed as a king in my house.
