I don't look at scripts. I just write them.

I tried [being a mogul]. It bores me. I don't really want to produce other people's movies. Because they're either grown-up filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh or Kathryn Bigelow that didn't really need me - and I've produced both of them. It's fun to sit around with them and be collegial, but they don't need me. They can make the film without me. I make my own stuff. There are tons and tons of other things I'm interested in that have nothing to do with movies or are documentary projects.

I'm certainly not a fan of conversion when you could shoot the movie in 3-D.

I've tried not to get sucked into the Hollywood hierarchy system. Personally, I don't like it when people are deferential to me because I'm an established filmmaker. It's a blue-collar sensibility.

Getting the audience to cry for the Terminator at the end of T2, for me that was the whole purpose of making that film. If you can get the audience to feel emotion for a character that in the previous film you despised utterly and were terrified by, then that's a cinematic arc.

So much of literary sci-fi is about creating worlds that are rich and detailed and make sense at a social level. We'll create a world for people and then later present a narrative in that world.

It took me a long time to realize that you have to have a bit of an interlanguage with actors. You have to give them something that they can act with.