I call myself a playmaker sometimes - but that's just a word. I don't feel like I have to have a title or a job description.

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

When I was thinking about The Lion King, I said, we have to do what theater does best. What theater does best is to be abstract and not to do literal reality.

Limitations force you to find the essence of what you want to say, which is one of the most important things to know for an artist.

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.

People will justify whatever for a good cause.

When I'm working as a director, I might have an idea of my own but I'm also trying to get great ideas out of my actors. Directing is much more psychological - it's a lot like being a general. And you have to be organized. While you're making a film, you have between 2 and 500 people asking you a billion questions.