I realized that people make cartoons for a living. It had never dawned on me that you could do this as a career.

I always loved the idea of a spy movie and part of it came from my personal love of spy movies. It started when I was growing up as a little kid in the 60s.

You cannot base a whole movie on just the imagery alone. It has to be the story and the characters.

Every technology that comes into filmmaking is first a gimmick. Think about sound with 'The Jazz Singer' or the first colour or surround sound - it takes a while for filmmakers to understand how to use it.

I always felt a little bit like a little kid that's never grown up in the world of adults.

Sure, they were simple desk lamps with only a minimal amount of movement, but you could immediately tell that Luxo Jr. was a baby, and that the big one was his mother. In that short little film, computer animation went from a novelty to a serious tool for filmmaking.

You have to do three things really well to make a successful film. You have to tell a compelling story that has a story that is unpredictable, that keeps people on the edge of their seat where they can't wait to see what happens next. You then populate that story with really memorable and appealing characters. And then, you put that story and those characters in a believable world, not realistic but believable for the story that you're telling.