When you have children, you realize that at the end it's all about passing on, about handing down. The process of letting go, not attachment, but appreciating the beauty and value in the change, the transformation.

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've always thought of acting as a tool to change society. I watch a lot of actors and I see panic in their eyes because they don't know why they act and I know why I act. Whether I'm a good or a bad actor, I know why I do it.

In terms of animation, animators are actors as well. They are fantastic actors. They have to draw from how they feel emotionally about the beat of a scene that they're working on. They work collaboratively.

There's this whole grey area seemingly every time it's talked about animators and who takes ultimate responsibility for the characters [of the Planet of the apes] but without question and I'll go down saying this year after year, these characters are authored by what we do on set. They are not authored by animators.

I expect at some point I'll probably want to go back on stage and do some theater, because I've not done theater in 10 years.

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!