[Childbirth] is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It's like an 'Alien' movie. I started crying, it was so emotional ... I was there in the room but I wasn't planning on doing much. But then I see this blue pinhead come out and I think I said to the nurse, 'What the hell is that?' And then it turns into this round red thing in seconds. It's just shocking.

People told me I couldn't kill Nicholson, so I cast him in two roles and killed him off twice.

One person's craziness is another person's reality.

There was one moment, and it happened in school. I had a big final exam - we were supposed to write a 20-page report on this book about Houdini. I probably would have loved reading it, but I didn't, so I just decided to make a little super-8 movie based on it. I tied myself to the railroad tracks and all that. I mean, this is kid stuff, but it impressed the teacher, and I got an A. And that was maybe my first turning point, when I said, 'Yeah, I wouldn't mind being a filmmaker.'

I get so tired of people saying, 'Oh, you only make fantasy films and this and that', and I'm like, 'Well no, fantasy is reality', that's what Lewis Carroll showed in his work.

First of all, you make a movie that you want to see and then you just hope for the best.

I don't know what it was, maybe the movie theaters in my immediate surrounding neighbourhood in Burbank, but I never saw what would be considered A movies.