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.

My main interest in being a director, and the most important thing to me, is that world with the actors.

I never would have guessed I would be making science fiction and horror films.

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.

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."

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.

That movie [War for the Planet of the Apes] is incredibly engaging; it's what drives the emotion of all these films. So tonight, we're going to show a long sequence that's actually going to be.