My hope is that I'm going to continue to make more and more challenging work that's going to come out more and more interesting. I don't know if that will always continue to happen, but every one of my films has definitely been a progression as far as complexity of narrative, character, and plot.

It's not that much of a difference. Basically, your job is the same as a film director. It's a triangle between creativity, money, and time. But they don't really change. You're ultimately trying to get the most creativity and time with the money that you have.

Noah was this sort of patron saint in my life. When I finished Pi and I started to think about what was next, I was like, "Wow, it's interesting that no one has done a film of one of the greatest stories ever told." Even if you're not a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian, you likely have a flood story in your culture.

My hope is that I'm going to continue to make more and more challenging work that's going to come out more and more interesting. I don't know if that will always continue to happen, but every one of my films has definitely been a progression as far as complexity of narrative, character, and plot.

I spent about a year and a half doing technical post work on 'The Fountain'. Although I do like the process, I think my favorite part of filmmaking is the actors.

In seventh grade I had a magical teacher, her name was Mrs. Fried. She wore only pink, she drove a pink Mustang, and she was half out of her head. But very inspiring. And one day she said, "Take out a paper and pen and write something about peace." For some reason I wrote a poem on Noah - I don't know why I chose Noah - and it turned out it was for a contest for the UN. I ended up winning and reading the poem in front of the UN. I remember Mrs. Fried telling me, "When you write your first book, dedicate it to me." That was like, "Whoa."

Film is a great tool to play with time, going back and forth through time, or speeding time up and slowing it down and do stuff like that. That's something you can't experience in real life that you can experience on film, and it takes you to a different place.