“People ask me all the time, ‘What would your advice be to a young filmmaker?’ It used to be, pick up a camera and start making a movie. Now my advice is, live a bit of life, then pick up a camera and make a film about what you know and what you’ve experienced. Don’t go from being a super-fan in high school to film school, and come out knowing nothing about life except what you’ve seen in movies. Because you don’t know shit. You’ve got nothing new to say.

I stand by that now. That’s the journey I took. I left home when I was 18, I worked as a machinist, I worked as a school bus driver, a school bus mechanic, precision tool guy, truck driver, all kinds of stuff. Worked on auto body – what do you call it over here? I was a panel beater! Got married, had a house with a picket fence, and then I started making films when I was in my mid-twenties. I don’t think I missed anything. It’s not that I was late coming out the gate. I mean, Spielberg, he was 19 when he started, but he’s the exceptional case.”

– James Cameron, as interviewed by Little White Lies Magazine. You can read the whole article here:

James Cameron: ‘Soon we’ll have AI creating movies – and it’ll suck’