There's not really much destruction in New York besides the weather and it's a natural force so it's not like any destruction. But LA gets leveled (laughs). That's my comment to Hollywood.

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.

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.

If you want to assemble the same people, then you have a big problem.

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.

When it comes to action, I'd say Mel Gibson and Will [Smith] were 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.