I think it's so incredibly special to be able to try to recapitulate that feeling I had when I was sitting in that theater, as a 7-year-old. It's an extraordinary job. I'm incredibly lucky.

It's easy in a novel to be completely unambiguous about the relationship between animal and daemon simply by stating it outright; whereas you get very few opportunities to do this in an elegant way in a film.

I often make movies that involve depression or deep holes of sadness, although there are also these other great things in 'New Moon,' like this epic set-piece at the end of the film in Italy.

All I can say is that with 'The Golden Compass,' I didn't get to make the movie I had planned to make. When I look at the film, at the casting and certain scenes, I'm very happy. As for the final product, I can't vouch for that.

Having been dumped so many times in my life, I thought I could sympathize with Bellas character.

I love being by the ocean. It stills the voices in my head.

The reason that stepmothers are often the bad guy in fairy tales is because people died in childbirth, all the time, so fathers remarried and there would be a struggle between the children and the new wife, in terms of who would inherit what.