I love different themes, different venues, different movies. I love to jump about and tackle different subjects. I have no intellectual master plan.

I want to make films about the human condition, what we're doing to the world or ourselves.

People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.

There's nothing really original. Alien was a B-movie. Five directors passed on it before me. Because I was into Heavy Metal, I read it, and thought, "Wow, I want to do this." I was on a plane to Hollywood in 22 hours. It was a B-movie and was elevated to an A-plus movie by sheer good taste.

But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.

I don't ever blink, honestly.