I always thought what if you took a myth of childhood like the tooth fairy and made it a central scary thing. We did it on Hellboy and we did it on 'Don't be afraid of the dark'.

If film making is magic, there's a difference between close up magic and David Copperfield. If you're doing close up magic, which independent filmmakers do, it is a very delicate craft, interpersonal relationship, and being able to enrapture a very small audience.

Even if one understands that what one is doing is mad, it is indeed still madness -

I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but I'd love to do one where one of the kids dies, or one of the main characters dies. I love for those things to have a little bit more tragedy.

If you're doing a big spectacle film, you've got to be mindful of large masses. Even then, you've got to be responsible only to your storytelling.

What is fantastic for me is that the Romantic movement comes out as a counter balance to everything that has been accumulating since the Age of Reason. I think the downfall of imagination as a genre or as a perception starts with the Age of Reason, which says everything else that came before us, all those superstitions, all those myths, are childish.

I'm the freaky version of that superhero who says, wherever there is injustice, I shall be there. Whenever there is a difficult project, I'd like to be there.