I don't love balls and sleeping beauties, that kind of thing. I think the great thing about 'Snow White' is those images have scarred me since I was a child with the Queen, the mirror, the taking of the heart, the huntsman and the enchanted forest.

Our story is a 'once upon a time', but it's not a 'happy ever after'.

To me there's very few actresses who've had twenty years experience who have that cyberpunk aesthetic already baked in. Scarlett Johansson comes from such edgy films from Lost in Translation to Under the Skin - she's got an incredible body of work and the attitude and the toughness of her really is to me, the Major.

I cast very much from the gut, and I think I was very lucky to be able to get... many amazing international... people that I had always really wanted to work with.

I think what we're trying to do as filmmakers is make a big, gritty, raw, epic movie and within that show things graphically in a way that they haven't been seen in that world before.

To me, casting is all about finding a character within the actor off the screen as much as on the screen.

I'm influenced by a lot of filmmakers; I like English filmmakers because I feel a kin to them.