There's that weird and cool line that music can cross where it still gives you the goosebumps and you think it's cool but on the other hand it's sort of like also letting you off the hook a little bit with the ironic aspects of the thing. I think that's the inexplicable, the smell of a movie. That's the taste of the movie.

I've ended up as a filmmaker who really loves the movie part of movies. That time in my life was a big influence on the kind of movies that I ended up making. I always think I'm going to make a movie that's gritty and real, but then I make a movie that's like an opera. I fight it at first and then that's just the way it is.

Probably the hardest thing to do was the beginning of the movie ["300"], I think, when we were in Sparta and all that - just getting in the groove.

I imagine the film ["300"] as if I was a Spartan and I had never seen an immortal or a Persian, or an elephant or a rhino for that matter.

Reality's its own thing. And I'm not really into reality that much. I'm into this cinematic stylized reality that can comment on reality. It's like the most beautiful parts of reality and the saddest parts, but it's none of this middle ground.

[Writing something original from scratch], the initial process is way different. But once it exists and you start to actually work on making it real, then the approach is kind of the same, for me anyways.

When Reality is a prison, Your mind can set you free.