I love the silent era because you can see the rules being written, the grammar of film being created. Most of my films are in some way love letters to the silent era.

Sometimes the things I learn making paintings or drawings - composition, colour, expressionism, texture - can directly influence the making of a film. Sometimes it's great that they are different, and simply taking a break from one medium to spend time with another, recharges the batteries and I feel refreshed.

The filmmakers I really love are the ones that let me look through their eyes for a while. They have an aesthetic and social point of view.

When you just get fantasy stories that are about fairies or goblins, I just don't care. I'm never going to meet a goblin, it doesn't mean anything to me. So my definition of fantasy is very broad, it's anything to do with memory, or dreams, or ways of interpreting or making sense of the world.

I think the two jobs I dreamed of doing as a teenager were comic book artist and record cover illustrator. Maybe film director was in the mix as well, but that seemed to be an impossible mountain to climb.

I love the silent era because you can see the rules being written, the grammar of film being created. Most of my films are in some way love letters to the silent era.

You could easily spend several lifetimes trying to master film. It make very good use of all the things that I love. Narrative, image-making, also sound and music. It's so full that I can't really imagine getting tired of it. Or getting to the point like I feel like I know it.