There are so many people who are conscientious and caring about others. I've spent time working in countries where I really noticed the absence of civic concern, care for other people. I've been in other countries where I feel a palpable, almost tooth-and-claw attitude between people - Machiavellian, me and mine. And you can take for granted being here, with all the bloviating and the media, on a day-to-day level, people in this country are really pretty concerned for each other.

There is a lot of interesting product coming to market already. Bags and bottles and cups and such made of potato starch and other fully biodegradable materials. In some sense, plastic is more chemically complex. We ought to be able to simplify.

I've always liked the idea of taking old dramatic ideas and devices and making them feel relevant or contemporary or whatever.

The thing I'm absolutely convinced of, no matter how crazy - technological the world is getting, is that people feel more connected through the good works. Entertainment, and the sort of soporific effect it has on people and their stress, is one thing.

I read a lot of scripts and so many are clearly a knockoff of one familiar genre or another.

A lot of people ask, "What do you pull on in your own life from your character?" In all honesty, it's not something that really works that way for me. I tend to look at these things as an imaginative process and a challenge of imagination and empathy, to some degree. I get much more out of meeting people who have lived these lives than I do digging around in my own limited experiences.

But look at Avatar (2009), one of the most globally viewed pieces of entertainment to have ever been made - the central emotional event of the whole movie was a tree being cut down. And the entire movie, essentially, is saying, "If we let the military industrial complex trash the place that we're living in, we will have committed an epic crime."