I was doing political cartoons and getting angry to the point where I felt I was going to have to start making and throwing bombs. I thought I was probably a better cartoonist than a bomb maker.

My strength, if it's anything, is that I can lure some big-name actors in. That's probably the strength of almost any director now. On your own, as a director, you've only got so much weight. James Cameron, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay... that's about it. Everybody else depends on the star power that they can draw.

I don't think you ever learn just one thing. At some point you start unlearning things. I have been working hard to unlearn everything I know.

A lot of people seem to get carried away that something that's made out of paper mâché is going to be better than not. And I always thought the original King Kong, that terrible little puppet with its hair going in all directions, was far more magical than Peter Jackson's incredibly beautifully rendered King Kong. So there's something to be said for a more primitive version of things. I think it's because it makes the audience work a little bit more, because you've got to invest it with life and reality, so I like doing that.

I was an incredible Anglophile. I found people who shared the same sense of humor and attitude toward the world.

I have always got medicine I want to give to people.

They all sort of get mixed up in my head, to be quite honest. They're all dealing with similar things. It's about how you deal with reality, by ignoring it sometimes, reinventing it other times, and that's how you get through it.