I did The Fifth Element and [Jean-Claude] Mezieres, the artist of Valerian; he was working on Fifth Element. And he's actually the one who say, why don't you do Valerian? And I said because we can't make it. And you really have to wait for Avatar and to suddenly think oh okay, maybe we can think of it. But before Avatar, just forget it.

I'm always attracted by people who are lost in their time. I think it helps us.

I would rather stop [making movies] too soon than too late.

If you're someone from the government and you meet people from other countries, you want to know who you're dealing with. It's the same for them [in Valerian].

It's always the small people who change things. It's never the politicians or the big guys. I mean, who pulled down the Berlin wall? It was all the people in the streets. The specialists didn't have a clue the day before.

I said if I made 10 films in my life, I would be very lucky. That's how I meant it. My fear after my first one was whether they would let me make another one, so I had this goal in my head.

Loving a film is like falling in love with a woman or with a man like you never expect it. It it's not the one you think you will be in love with, you know. You think always that he will be with a beard, and black, and big and finally he's Chinese and you know it's the same thing. There's something very organic about the film and if you forgot it, if you don't have this seed in it...this organic flavor in it the film doesn't work it's wrong.