Earnestness can ferment into sentimentality.

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.

When you have to react to a lizard that's a tennis ball, it's a really, really difficult, tricky piece of craft.

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.

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.

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.

When you get that opportunity to be honest and open with somebody, for the first time, and share things about yourself that you haven't been able to share before, that you might be scared of or ashamed about, that's really exhilarating, and I think that's something that people will really identify with.