I've acted with all types, I've directed all types. What you want to understand as a director, is what actors have to offer. They'll get at it however they get at it. If you can understand that, you can get your work done.

There's a very real argument that the minute we are capable of going to a planet, whether it's Mars or another one, and inhabiting it, that we really should.

I think the most important thing really was that you could take very personal ideas and present them to an audience in entertaining ways.

You're always a little surprised when something really takes off.

When Apollo 13 appeared as an opportunity and I began to tackle that in as authentic a way as I possibly could, I really became enthralled by the philosophical side of space travel, and why we need to explore - what it means to us here on Earth - all of those things. I became a huge proponent.

One of the great things about being a director as a life choice is that it can never be mastered. Every story is its own kind of expedition, with its own set of challenges.

Sports always works for us more allegorically or metaphorically and that's what's fantastic about why we love them. You demonstrate the limits to which a human being can go and they keep pushing the boundaries of that.