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.

I think every good, entertaining movie should have a message. I really believe that, because if you do it without it, the film feels a little bit soulless.

["2012"] it was really more about the subject matter, and to do a modern retelling of Noah's Ark, a flood story.

I knew that Jaye Davidson would not last because of that. I really liked him and thought he had incredible screen presence and talent, but I knew that he would not stay in that profession.

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.

Dean [Devlin, Emmerich's partner on "Independence Day"] and I always said that we'd only do it when we had a really good story that excites us both, and we have the story written. And we've had it for a year and a half, two years. So we've been ready.

I would say, when it comes to comedy, I think Matthew Broderick was great.