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."

Noah is the battle of justice versus mercy. In Genesis it says that Noah was righteous in his times. You think you sort of know what righteous means, you know, if you listen to a lot of Bob Marley. According to all the biblical scholars we talked to, righteousness is the proper balance of justice and mercy. If you think of that, as a parent, you know that if you have too much justice and you're too strict, you destroy a child. If you have too much mercy, as a parent, you destroy a child as well. A big part of this movie is Noah finding mercy for man.

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.

Comic books and graphic novels are a great medium. It's incredibly underused.

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

To me, watching a movie is like going to an amusement park. My worst fear is making a film that people don't think is a good ride.

I'm not a comic book guy at all.