I've been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for 'From Here To Eternity.' David Bowie in 'Man Who Fell to Earth,' Kris Kristofferson's been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in 'Precious.

Hollywood is not stupid, contrary to popular belief; it's really a lot of intelligent people trying to figure things out.

The big fun in Battleship is that there are no current battleships in the Navy today. The battleships are about 1,000 feet long and they have huge guns. They were what you saw in WWII. The last battleship that was used was the Missouri, which is what the Japanese surrendered to...

You might make a lot of money, but it's very hard to get out from under that rug. The more you can reinvent yourself, the better - and unfortunately TV is designed not to let you redesign yourself.

I wanted to do a naval film and I flirted with different ideas, most of which ended up being too intense. So when the idea of 'Battleship' was first suggested, I was instantly drawn to the challenge - could I invent a movie around the idea of five ships fighting five ships?

I think I've been fortunate enough to have a fairly long career and hopefully I'm at the middle of it now. And I think I'm starting to develop a certain amount of experience and a certain amount of wisdom about kind of what really matters and what doesn't matter.

I don't like alien films where you don't get to see the aliens.