I mean, I didn't have a huge upbringing with movies, I guess.

When you're directing, you're right at the coal face, always exhausted, often emotional - and I'll enjoy being a couple of steps back from that and simply helping where I can.

To people in my industry I'm usually a guy that tries to generate his own projects and I remain very elusive when people try and attach me to big projects.

I think there's still a little bit of that 9 year-old in me and I'm pretty happy.

When you're casting a movie and when you're shooting a film, the eyes are the most important feature of any performer, really. Any great actor literally knows exactly how to use their eyes, and even as a filmmaker I love shooting huge close-ups because it's those eyes that mean so much to me.

New Zealand is not used to wealth. In America wealth is kind of a thing of pride. Here it's the opposite. The more you've got, the bigger the target you are.

Elijah can register such subtle emotion on his face that I loved doing close-ups on him. He really brings a superb emotional level to Frodo's scenes and although he is a very instinctive actor, we discussed the character thoroughly.