Where The Wild Things Are we were asking a lot of a 9-year-old kid. We were asking a lot of any actor.

I think the way kids create is so inspiring. They're drawing a picture? They love the picture they drew; they're not tortured about it.

Music is thousands and thousands of years old and I don't think that basic, primitive connection to the language of music ever changes.

I always aspire to that, where it feels like the film was made by the characters as opposed to the filmmakers. I try to be invisible.

On everything I do I'm always taking someone's money, whether it's a movie studio or a record label. Somebody's paying for it, and I'm always respectful of that. But I'm never going to compromise.

I think because I'm not a parent, my most immediate connection to childhood is my memory of my own childhood.

I'm not one to intellectualize why I did something.