Teen movies often have an unspoken underlying premise in which high school is seen as less serious than the adult world. But when your head is encased in that microcosm it's the most serious time of your life.

I do love science fiction, but it's not really a genre unto itself; it always seems to merge with another genre. With the few movies I've done, I've ended up playing with genre in some way or another, so any genre that's made to mix with others is like candy to me. It allows you to use big, mythic situations to talk about ordinary things.

That's part of the appeal of time-travel movies: The notion of going back and fixing something.

The momentum of production keeps you from giving up, so it's really the editing and writing phases where things can look bleakest.

Well, you know, we all grew up as 'Star Wars' fans.

Showing your movie to an audience... it's like your kid doing a piano recital. 'Just let it not fail. Please.

You never want to make a "message movie," but you always want to be talking about something that you care about.