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.

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

I think that's really the kind of exponential factor in being in a punk-rock band or making music videos and movies -pirates and rock 'n' roll go hand in hand. There is a `question authority,' `don't be afraid to break the rules' quality that whether you're a 4-year-old bouncing on your bed as your parents are trying to stop it or an adult longing for that feeling, there's something inside all of us that piracy speaks to. I'm going to do what I want to do and I don't care what you think.

I find it ironic that fear is eliminating the possibility to tell stories that depict our ability to overcome fear

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

I think comedy is drama, often. It's hard to have comedy over a period of time - commercials are one thing, but over a period of time - comedy and tragedy go hand in hand.

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?