I'm not a journalist; I'm a poet. I had a discourse, an encounter with these people but I never had a list of questions.

I function better in the jungle in Amazonia or Antarctica or Alaska or the Sahara desert. An artificial environment like a studio has never attracted me. I could work in a studio, but I would never really feel at home.

It was a subject [ volcanoes] that was dormant in me for a long time and it popped up 40 years ago when I made a [short] film on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe about a volcano that was about to explode and a single farmer refused to leave ["La Soufrière"].

I couldn't roam wildly and speak secretly with villagers [in North Korea]. No way you could do that. And honestly, I didn't even try. I was realistic of what I could do and yet persuaded them into accepting numerous things that I shouldn't have filmed.

May I propose a Herzog dictum? Those who read own the world, and those who watch television lose it.

I like and I love everything that has to do with cinema, writing, directing, editing, creating music, and even acting.

I think the worst that can happen in filmmaking is if you're working with a storyboard. That kills all intuition, all fantasy, all creativity.