Renny Harlin Quotes

Ford Fairlane was one of those movies that was so much fun to make that it was bound not to be a big hit.

I feel like I learned very early on that your heroes are only as powerful as your villains. And I'm attracted to intelligent villains.

In Finland, getting a university degree is the first thing that you expect your kids to do.

I decided that, somehow, I had to get out of there and go to Hollywood. I had never been to America.

I did some film reviews for small papers in Finland and things like that to be able to keep living here.

I learned a lot about how to shoot and how to put together sequences.

I was making films when I was about 12 years old - Super-8 films.

I think the reason why we were able to actually get it made was that we were so extremely naive - we had no experience at all here. We didn't even know that you were supposed to have an agent. We didn't even have a lawyer. We didn't know one soul.

Several times we were stranded in strange places without any money and with our credit cards cancelled - trapped in a hotel that we couldn't check out of because we had no money to check out.

Eventually I did that, but it took a lot of twists and turns, and there were a year or two there where I was living with no money at all - no home, no car, no nothing. I was living in somebody's garage in Los Angeles at that point - for a year.

A government institution called the Finnish Film Foundation funds filmmaking there, and I wrote several screenplays but never got any money. They were sent back to me, and they said that they were too commercial for them.

There were a lot of people dreaming about making films, and they would finance maybe 6 films a year. Because they were funded by the government, the films sort-of had to deal with serious social issues - and, as a result, nobody went to see those films.

When I make decisions based on other circumstances, things don't necessarily go so well. So sometimes, even if something seems commercially tempting, I've learned that if it's not what's in your heart, it's probably not what you should do.

I loved movies and went to see every movie I could in Finland.

You want to do something that shows some type individuality and talent and imagination - at the same time, you want to be truthful to the predecessors, because obviously the audience liked something about them and you have to replicate that experience to a certain extent.

I believe the important part of directing really is finding the right people for the right roles. Sometimes you go for what's expected, and sometimes you go against type because you think that'll really bring something different to the movie.

Just live in the moment and not be afraid to try things out and make mistakes.

At that point, the movie was called Wild Force. Everything fell apart, eventually - our financing completely fell apart - and we were never able to make that film.

Actually, it was first a movie called Gale Force, which was a hurricane movie. That script never came together, and then the same deal was replaced with Cliffhanger.

I went out to some advertising agencies and asked if I could do anything.

I loved cutting together simple commercials about margarine or soft drinks - all kinds of silly products - but I tried to make the commercials different.