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.

If I would want to have a huge audience, I would make American movies, not French movies, because there is a limit of course with French language. If I prefer to shoot in my own language, it is to play with my language, to play in my Paris, and I have complete freedom in France. It's so amazing. If American directors could imagine how free I am, they would have asked for political asylum immediately.

I hate to lose time on the set. On the set, you have to go at a good pace, because the clock is your master. For that reason, I have to know exactly what I'm trying to get beforehand.

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 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 Hollywood everything is formatted, everything is compulsory, so therefore we have to follow the law of benefits and profit and money, let us say the law of Hollywood.

I like looking back at people's faces in the dark. I like noticing details that no one else sees. But I hate it in the old American movies when drivers don't watch the road.