How can you look at the galaxy and not feel insignificant?

I'm very competitive. I just go with what engages or fascinates me in my work and that's it. I have no definition; I just love to do it.

Once you crack the script, everything else follows.

It goes back a long way. I wanted to make Tristan + Isolde as my second movie. My first movie was The Duellists. And I was standing in a very romantic part of France looking around me thinking, "My God, this would be perfect for Tristan," and to cut a long story short it never happened because I did Alien instead.

What you do, is you gradually become more and more experienced, and more and more realistic about dramatic tolerance, i.e. about how long the play should be.

I'm just trying to think what other sequels there were. There was the James Bond movies and not many. I think sequels have become a recent idea of franchising.

When you're doing a big movie, you're gone for 10 months to a year.