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 think sport in general affects what people see in movies. I always try to explain to people in Hollywood that we have to make movies more like sport because, in sport, everything can happen and it's so much better than movies in some ways.

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.

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.

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'm finished with destroying for a while. It's not like I'm running around saying, 'What else can I destroy?'

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.