If it takes several billion years to develop the building blocks which you need, like RNA and DNA, and then those can build multicellular life and then multicellular life can be honed with natural selection to a point where it becomes sentient like us, then at some point that sentient being can begin to manipulate the matter around it to build better sentient life.

If something is as smart as you, do you treat it differently if it isn't a human?

When I was in my early 20s, I was quite into Japanese animation. It's like the same thing that I end up always saying which is, imagery based stuff is the thing that really gets me.

News is almost more interesting to me than other people's fiction, if that makes sense. But other people's fiction in terms of design is still incredibly interesting to me.

If you're a theater director, you're not going to be prepared for the technical side. And if you're a technical director, you're not going to be prepared for the acting side. The only thing you can do is go through the meat grinder of your first film.

I think that 'Elysium' the movie is unrealistic, with the space station and everything. I think 'Elysium' the metaphor is completely realistic: it's exactly where we're going.

High-level actors can be all about their close-ups and the size of their trailers. I'd heard these horror stories of how a really powerful actor can come in and change your script.