When we shot 'The Lord of the Rings,' we had special permission to film in wild areas of New Zealand that could be accessed only by helicopter. They would drop us off and we would work all day, and they'd pick us up and take us out again.

In principle, I think the idea of rewarding a good effort is interesting, but movies are generally different from each other as are performances and the conditions on how the performances are given and how they're edited and so forth.

I like stories that leave you wanting more, leave you wondering, but don't tell you everything.

As a kid I read Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and a few others. As an adult have admired Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and notebooks.

I wrote a letter to the magazine [Time magazine] pointing out that [Richard] Corliss's comparison of Christopher Lee's Saruman to Osama Bin Laden, and the vastly outnumbered defenders of Helm's Deep united against the Orcs to the "Coalition of the Willing" fighting the good fight against Muslim hordes, displayed the simplistic, xenophobic, and arrogant worldview that makes the government of the United States feared and mistrusted around the world. The editors claimed they had no space to print my brief letter, which I felt was dishonest and cowardly.

To find a good story, you’re generally going to find it in independent or lower budget movies... I wouldn’t mind doing a big budget movie if it had a great story.

It doesn't take that many years for a kid to realise that they're going to die. It's always there in the back of their mind the rest of their lives.