Patrick Swayze reminded me a lot of Gene Kelly. Patrick had that Everyman quality. Gene made dancing sort of an accessible idea for the regular guy out there.

'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' was my favorite for me to be in because it was all dancing. There were other musicals that I made with Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly that were wonderful pictures, and we had a lot of fun making them.

Gene Kelly was hard on me, but I think he had to be.

I wanted to be Gene Kelly. Well really, I just wanted to dance with Cyd Charisse.

I was a dancer, and it's not really cool for a boy to dance, so it was inspiring to see a movie like 'Footloose' where a guy is dancing masculine and had a proper reason behind it. It made me feel cool, and when these kids would make fun of me, I'd be like, 'Oh, didn't you see 'Footloose,' man?'

There's an old Fred Astaire movie where the stage becomes bigger and deeper and more complex. Moments like that really did impact on me and influence me.