And as a first time director I needed to work with someone that I felt comfortable with, and that I could get along with. It was a perfect match [with Sam Rockwell]; I am so thrilled I got to work with him. He is a really nice and incredible guy.

Obviously, there's a big homage to Outland in Moon. I obviously had Ridley Scott's response, which was great. But Peter Hyams really loved Moon and was really enthusiastic about it. He was also enthusiastic about the fact we'd remembered Outland and had remembered it fondly. I think, for him, it was like some kind of edification that there were people out there who loved his film. So, that was a really lovely feeling.

Every film I try and make it the way I see it in my head, and it really just depends on the script and the people I'm working with or whatever interests me at that particular time.

One of the biggest changes for me on a practical level of shooting the film was having a second unit.

When I was a kid and I was being introduced to science fiction by watching movies with my Dad, Kubrick is one of those guys that we used to watch, you know, I watched Clockwork Orange at an age that was incredibly inappropriate, but he sat there with me and he explained what was going on and you know, I came to appreciate it even if I was terrified at the time.

When Peter Jackson did The Lord of the Rings trilogy with Fellowship of the Ring, not everyone had read Tolkien, and yet somehow with that scope and the spectacle of that fantasy, people were willing to give it a shot. And when they watched the first one, the characters drew them in and they started understanding the story. And then, all of a sudden, they were The Lord of the Rings fans, even if they never read Tolkien.

Sometimes there's a disjoint between what works on the page and what works with visual story telling.