Sometimes you got to a point where it wasn't happening and you had to figure out another way to do it, particularly in terms of making the jaguar do what you wanted. That was not CG, a real guy had to run really fast and not trip. There was a form of restraint on the creature that you can't see. so it was all very safe - but it is real.

We all present a version of ourselves whether you've got a puppet on your hand or not. To actually be very real out there in a public way, why?

I've got one of Darwin's books at home and some of that stuff is pretty damn funny. Some of his stuff is true, like that the giraffe has a long neck so it can reach the leaves. But I just don't think you can swallow the whole piece.

Nobody makes art for an elite, not if they're a real artist. You try and reach as many people as possible with whatever it is that you make. If a chef is making an omelette, he wants everyone to think that it tastes great because he did it. And if it does, then that's a success because everyone eats it.

There has to be some kind of order and some moral code. I don't know how people can function without a belief in a deity.

It's a wise man who understands that every day is a new beginning, because boy, how many mistakes do you make in a day? I don't know about you, but I make plenty. You can't turn the clock back, so you have to look ahead.

You can access that on many levels and the human spirit and the human mind responds to those themes because they recognise the veracity of them. That they are real things. Sometimes it even goes beyond logic, it's just a sense of something.