The things that are more my own style are something that I don't really have to think about. The only time I have to think about them is if I want to force myself not to do it the way I do it.

On Fantastic Mr. Fox, I got used to working with animated storyboards as a way of planning for the shoot. We did a lot of sequences that way with this movie. Partly as a result of that, I decided to build more sets in order to do certain shots.

There's no story if there isn't some conflict. The memorable things are usually not how pulled together everybody is. I think everybody feels lonely and trapped sometimes. I would think it's more or less the norm.

If somebody asks me about the themes of something I'm working on, I never have any idea what the themes are. . . . Somebody tells me the themes later. I sort of try to avoid developing themes. I want to just keep it a little bit more abstract. But then, what ends up happening is, they say, 'Well, I see a lot here that you did before, and it's connected to this other movie you did,' and . . . that almost seems like something I don't quite choose. It chooses me.

A prototype is always more expensive than anything.

Paris is a place where, for me, just walking down a street that I've never been down before is like going to a movie.

I didn't think so much of him at first. But now I get it: he's everything that I'm not.