I think my parents gave me a love of learning; from there you set out on your own path.

Everyone always wants to find the answer, to feel that things are resolved. But in dreams, maybe there isn't an answer so much.

There's so much work in making movies, it's so easy to tear one down. When I watch a movie, even one that I don't particularly enjoy, I'm constantly impressed at the work that's in it. I respect the craftsmen and women. I tolerate a lot of movies that maybe other people don't, just because I know what goes into them.

I just watched so many Westerns as a kid that you end up using archetypes and sort of tropes of that genre, because there's a language there and you can twist it and turn it on its head or play to it or go sideways at any time.

Animated films are so precisely engineered - right down to forming lines of dialogue with words pulled from several different takes - how do you translate that spontaneity from the live-action to the digital realm?

It's a mistake for Hollywood to impose themselves on the gaming space. Not only is it arrogant, but it hasn't really worked.

What makes me smile is a movie where I feel like it is dangerous, or there's that fresh idea there. It's about learning and growing and trying new things and tinkering, all of those things that keep you excited. But if you're not nervous, if you're not on that boundary of the unknown, I don't think you're getting better. I think you're kind of sitting back, and I don't think you're advancing the form.