It's that we're experiencing emotion through photo-real apes, and that's really holding a mirror up to who we are. It's interesting, because as we're showing the movie now, we're getting a lot of response about things [people] think are very topical. And the intention is never to approach it from the outside-in, which is to say, "Ah, this is going on, let's draw that in."

When you think of the "Exorcist" (1973) you think of Linda Blair and pea soup and all this madness, but really if you look at the first half of that film, the stuff between her and Ellen Burstyn is so naturalistic and so real.

One of the things I thought coming into the franchise, what I thought was a unique gift: you hear so much of these reboots, remakes, re-whatevers, and the thing about them is that a lot of them are retellings.

I think there's a level at which you think that there's a reason that you're being singled out, that you're being chosen. As a kid, I was always mistaken for a girl. Before you reach that age where your sexuality starts to display itself, kids can look very androgynous, and I guess I leaned more toward the feminine. All those things were very hard, growing up, because you're trying to create an identity, and you're feeling shameful about the one that you're making. So, I identified with it a lot.

I think the fun thing about this franchise [Planet of Apes], as storytellers, is that a lot of the franchises are very black and white. This is all about the gray areas; it's really about the nature.

There's something about seeing a movie that you like, and being able to see the scenes that didn't make it, just as a window into the process of how choices are made and how a movie is made. To me, the idea of getting to have the scenes on the DVD is very exciting.

That was one of the key things - when you asked the story about the writing of the story - one of the things we wanted to make sure was that it grew out of.