That's a heavy word, but picking up a newspaper every day, how can you not despair at what's happening in the world, and how we're represented as human beings? The disappointments and corruption are dismaying at every level. And the biggest source of evil is of course religion... Everyone are tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshipping the same god.

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

I always say to people when I'm trying to get something going, bringing on other producers or other directors, "You can think of 95 reasons why not to make a movie. You've got to address why you want to make the movie and get it done. Just do it." I tend to live by that rule.

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.

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

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.

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.