The music in a film like this is as critical as anything because Kong is mute. He doesn't talk.

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'm a Beatles fan, and I remember in the mid-1980s, when CDs first came out, there was a sound of vinyl and the sound of the needle on it that people loved, and suddenly CDs were threatening.

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.

Writing a screen play with a group of collaborators is like the Lennon McCartney collaboration .... sometimes one or two people do more than others on certain parts of the process and vice versa.

Rivalry doesn't help anybody.

I think that you can treat a classic like a museum piece -stuffed and mounted- or you can make it a living, breathing narrative that is unfolding right then and there.