I was 12 or 13 years old. So I started to write poetry and fiction, even though I was really into biology because my dad was a science teacher. I kept writing all those years.

The whole visual language of the movie is developed way before we get to set. Especially when you're doing visual effects and you don't have a lot of money to mess around, which we didn't, you have to really preplan everything. Pretty much every shot in the film was figured out months before we got to set.

Casting ethnic characters is a very hard thing to do, but it's important. It's also interesting.

I don't think I make genre films. I think studios try to sell films as genres because they know how to do that. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't know what I make. It's sort of a pot roast, all my films.

I think people are people and, if their feelings are truthful, they can connect. It doesn't matter if you're an aging, 50-something wrestler at the end of his career, or an ambitious, 20-something ballet dancer.

I think I came to film-making through writing. I started to write, and people, teachers, responded to my writing.

In the story, which is only a few chapters long in Genesis, Noah never even speaks until after the flood - but when you have Russell Crowe, you're going to make him speak.