I've said that "2012" was my favorite ensemble cast, because it was so evenly good.

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

The President of the United States has super star status. He's not a normal person, because he's protected like no other person in the world and if this man's life is in danger, the whole world is kind of in peril in a way, because the leader of the free world could fall into the hands of terrorists.

I'm a filmmaker, not a scientist.

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 try to put in every one of my movies some sort of message. I don't want to overdo it, because I don't want people to get annoyed by it, but it's good to have a message.

Nobody makes movies bad on purpose.