It's very, very rare you find something really original and also because a lot of original stuff, most of the time has no chance, because it's so expensive to make something famous or put it in people's head that it's the one to see, it's like awareness has to be almost like at 80% or 90% if you make an expensive summer movie and that's very hard to do with anything an the White House naturally is in itself some sort of a trademark.

I've had the pleasure to work with a lot of very great actors. And they're too different to say who's the best.

It's still the White House exploding [in "Independence Day"]. It was just so provocative, and no one had ever done it before. I remember when we shot it, how everyone was excited.

Nobody makes movies bad on purpose.

Everybody knows that the industrialized nations are the worst offenders.

When we shot "Stargate," he [ Jaye Davidson] came up to me at one point and said, "I don't like shooting movies," and I said, "Why?" "Too many people stare at me." I said, "Then you're totally in the wrong business."

When you find something where you can give people a message and still make it an exciting movie, you get very, very excited about something. You probably even work harder than you normally do.