Americans in particular are myopic. They're not traveling as much. When you were a college student, the next thing you would do on graduation was to take a year off and travel. That's what I did. I went to Indonesia.

I believe that if you really have a strong idea, you can say, "What do you think? Let's see how my idea plays off yours."

I love directing Shakespeare on film. It's fantastic that the actors would do exactly the same thing and be true to their part.

I've had male executives say that my lead character was unlikable because she slept with a lot of guys.

One of the reasons I love to jump back and forth between mediums is that film does allow me to be more literal. I can go to the real place. I can go to the Coliseum, and I don't have to fake it.

Spider-Man is a genuine American myth with a dark, primal power, but it's also got this great superhero, and - hey! - he can fly through the theater at 40 miles an hour. It's got villains, it's got skyscrapers, it's colorful, it's Manhattan. I knew it would be a challenge, but I saw the inherent theatricality in it, and I couldn't resist.

I am, to be quite honest, sick of hero stories.