People think, 'Oh, well how can 'The Hobbit,' which is one book, become three films?' But you can take one line from an appendice and it turns into a whole sequence.

I'd already started directing short films when we were doing 'Lord of the Rings,' then videogame projects. So Peter's known that I've been heading towards directing for a long time. But I always thought my first outing would be a couple of people and a digital camera in the back streets of London somewhere!

A lot of actors on film sets... very often they're not paying attention to the physical world around them. I think through studying art, I've always had that awareness and that's something that I've wanted to bring in to go beyond acting... As a form of expression, they are intrinsically linked.

I love, first of all, reading and discovering what the common perception is and then trying to figure out... well, how does your life cross over into that character, or what's an angle on this that might challenge the status quo? It's just a great journey as well as an education. You're constantly being educated - it's like I'm back at school and making up for lost time.

Gorillas are still wild creatures. That's made very clear when you observe them in nature. They charge and perform other displays that are terrifying by design. But they don't attack unless they feel threatened.

I've done a fair amount of that stuff... when we did 'Lord of the Rings' the transformation sequence from Smeagol to Gollum was a 19-hour make-up job. You have to have a kind of zen button that you press and allow the mind to be focused in a certain way.

I love playing real characters... if they're not around anymore it's helpful because you won't get sued! But there's so much research involved and I love that part of the process.