I also, since we have digital cameras, the blue screen composites are so good that I would rather shoot on a stage than there, especially the complicated sequences. The sun never sets in a studio stage.

In the first earthquake scene [ in "2012"], there was only a limo and a plane. That was it. There was nothing else there, so everything had to be created in the computer, and that's always very difficult.

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

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 was actually privately in the White House like invited by Clinton to screen 'Independence Day,' so I know how the private residence looks. I didn't snap a picture, but I have a photographic memory and then I could take a guided tour in the West Wing.

We have certain things where we know they exist or "everybody knows they exist," but naturally nobody can photograph them, because they are so super secret. For example, the PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center exists, but nobody knows how it looks, but it's a so called bunker where he can survive a nuclear attack.

I was, it was very high. Especially with international (box office), we did something that I didn't think this movie ["2012"] would do. I was very happy.