Audiences can tell when you're being fake and they will eat you alive. But if you're doing something authentic they will connect to it and that can lead to commercial success.

It's really hard to find just a simple character-driven drama, outside of a genre, that was available to direct, except for on TV.

I think it's really important, when you're redefining a character [ Spider-Man], for the audience to experience things that they haven't experienced, from the ground up. I wanted to build a character. I feel like point of view is a really crucial thing in the story, and that you need to build up the emotional building blocks, so that you can experience all the other emotions in a very specific way, rather than just experiencing it in an intellectual way.

It's very important to keep the emotions grounded, to keep the characters in some real place.

One of my life philosophies is that you have a choice to make when you're doing something creative. You can be cheesy... or you can be lame.

I was a Marvel guy. I started reading comics when I was a kid.

Working with the actors, working with production designers, working with the creative people who surround the process is really fun, it's really inspiring and I take great pleasure in working with them. That's what's most fun about directing.