The whole point of animation to me is to tell a story, make a joke, express an idea. The technique itself doesn't really matter. Whatever works is the thing to use.

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.

There was a perverse side of me, with things like Van Helsing coming out. I didn't want to go down that route.

The forces that run the world always try to keep things under control. The population might be having a wonderful time, buying iPods and going to nice restaurants, but I still feel they're all kind of under control.

I do think so much of what I do is reactive to the way the world sees itself, or the way the world is being portrayed. I wanted to offer an alternative to that. Whether it is accepted or not is beside the point, but it's an alternative.

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.

What I want to do is make films that astonish people, that astound people, and I hope you want to do that too. It's easy to make money. It's easy to make films like everybody else. But to make films that explode like grenades in people's heads and leave shrapnel for the rest of their lives is a very important thing. That's what the great filmmakers did for me. I've got images from Fellini, from Bergman, from Kurowsawa, from Bunuel, all stuck in my brain.