I was really intrigued by them, became fascinated by them because they were asking questions that couldn't be answered almost, or were making statements that you couldn't quite understand. Like, 'I'm investigating things that begin with the letter M.' That took me through a whole stratosphere of possibilities, and doing a little research and discovered that the M is mercury.

In terms of it being a first screenplay, literally, my hat is off to him [Wally Pfister]. I didn't see any virgin blather in screen direction, or anything like that. It was just a wonderfully executed piece, and a complicated one. The mathematics involved in putting this film together, between Jack and Wally, and the great support of Alcon, it was not a easy little operetta.

We're all damaged in our own way. Nobody's perfect. I think we're all somewhat screwy. Every single one of us.

I'm not blockbuster boy.

Attention is a strange sort of being, anyway, the idea of attention if someone appreciates your work. It's always nice that someone appreciates your work.

It's absolutely fine when Wile E. Coyote walks in with a band-aid on his head, after a 3,000-pound rock is dropped on him. That is what Ed Wood meant by the suspension of disbelief.

The only responsibility I feel is to deliver something that's new or at least to attempt that. The real responsibility is to entertain and to try and make people laugh.