We've never pulled from the toy line. We've always pulled from the mythology. What's great is there's so much mythology, so there's always stuff to pull from that. It never lines up perfectly for a movie; it's just like adapting a book or anything else, you know? But you come up with things to create, you come up with different ideas, but fundamentally the ideas always start from the mythology.

As a filmmaker you have to keep asking yourself the question are we really going to impress them [audience] either by the wow factor, the intelligence factor, the I didn't see that coming factor?

I always consult five to ten people who are hardcore fans, to see how far I can push a role. When they go, "Wait a second, you can't do that! That's a sin!," you go, "Okay, fine, we're not going to do that. We tried too far."

One of the things that's driving films in a particular direction is that the after market value of them is dropping really fast and in many segments of it, not just DVDs. Pay television is dropping.

If the studio wants to spend money on making your movie better, let them.

I think when you're doing something cutting edge like 'The Matrix,' it might mean when everybody's saying 'no' that you're really on the right track.

Everybody has a background. Everybody has a past. Not everybody's the same person all the way through.