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

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.

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.

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.

In the end [of the "2012"], there were no ships, no water, no nothing. Only the interiors [were real]. Everything else had to be made, and that is always challenging.

I'm only a stupid filmmaker.

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.