I lived in Rome for about five or six months during Life Aquatic.

You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights. I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.

There's what is on screen and then for us, it's if you get along with the people and enjoy showing up at work.

I think somebody like Wes [Anderson] has a very good sense of style and is original. I think my sense of style got a little bit better after I was exposed to you guys at Valentino. Because I'm just in Hawaii and Malibu; it's just kind of T-shirts and surfing-type stuff.

Hansel is certainly about comfort, while still sort of having a peacock principle of wanting to attract attention.

The first thing I remember is Alexander Calder - our school took us on a field trip to go see the Calder mobiles, and that always stuck in my memory.

I think of myself as a doom person. I'm a worrier. But I like the idea of being an optimist. Maybe I'm the kind of optimist who deep down knows it's not going to work.