Fantasy isn't just a jolly escape: It's an escape, but into something far more extreme than reality, or normality. It's where things are more beautiful and more wondrous and more terrifying. You move into a world of conflicting extremes.

The more money you have to work with, the more people you have to deal with that you probably don't want to be spending time dealing with.

Literally overnight, I became an animator... and one that was well-known.

I do want to say things in these films. I want audiences to come out with shards stuck in them. I don't care if people love my films or walk out, as long as they have a strong response.

If you really want your films to say something that you hope is unique, then patience and stamina, thick skin and a kind of stupidity, a mule-like stupidity, is what you really need.

I thought, how do you confuse violent Russian mobsters? Well, by being silly!

Whatever I do might be good, it might be bad, it might be all sorts of things, but it's not mediocre.