I thought all I had to do was to buy a camera and become a film director. So when I left school I worked at a telephone company, which gave me the money to buy the basic equipment including the camera, the projector and the screen.

I like the cinema of people like Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton. I am not keen on trying to reproduce reality - for that you should do documentaries.

I write scripts by myself. It's not for everybody. It's someone's personal work. I need to be in love with the subject.

I would be wary about working in the States because freedom is an important thing. I have made seven films and even on Alien Resurrection I had the freedom. I had to fight and struggle a bit but in the end I won out.

In the States, I learned to fight for every idea. Sometimes, a director has to be a tyrant to keep the quality.

When you speak about generosity, about something good we have inside ourselves, you're speaking to the majority.

I love science fiction but I don't like fantastic [cinema]. For example, if you have a magical ring and you can explode the world with it. What are we talking about? You know, it's not interesting. I don't like Lord of the Rings. Even Star Wars, for me, I don't understand this kind of story. But Alien, because the rules of the game are very precise, it could happen. I love science fiction. I have an idea about robots in the future.