You could believe that Sinbad could fight a skeleton because that's from a period in the past, a magical period. But if you had James Bond fighting a skeleton, it'd be almost comical.

That's why I never became a director. I never had patience with people.

Many people are under the delusion that I'm just a special-effects man, but I've worn many different hats in my day. On every film I've been involved in, I worked with the writer and producer. We really formulated those scripts. We tried to make films that were logical but still had the fantasy feel of it. I enjoy Aardman Animation's films with Wallace and Gromit, but they're obvious puppet films, whereas we tried to disguise it and make our effects characters in the films rather than obvious puppets.

Animation requires a great deal of concentration, and I preferred to work alone because then I'm not deterred by somebody asking me if I want coffee, or the phone ringing or something.

I know pretty well in the broad sense what I'm going to do, because I have to know that when we shoot the live-action, so that it'll synchronize. Then I know pretty well when I get to the animation stage, what that scene requires.

There’s a strange quality in stop-motion photography, like in King Kong, that adds to the fantasy. If you make things too real, sometimes you bring it down to the mundane.

Animation had been used only for things like King Kong and the destruction of cities, which was very popular in the 1950s. I got tired of destroying cities. I destroyed New York, I destroyed San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Rome, and Washington. I was looking for a new outlet, and I came across the Sinbad legends.