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.

I mean, it's weird because people lately have been coming up to me and going, 'Oh, my God. '300' is huge.' I'm like, 'Really? It's not done yet!

People always come up to me now and say, 'Watchmen' is the best superhero movie ever made.' I'm always saying 'That's super cool. That's nice of you to say.' But it happens now, more and more and more than it did when it first came out.

My aesthetic is probably closer to a 15-year-old's than my dad's, but I get his conviction.

I used to be a huge fan of Heavy Metal magazine growing up, and I was exposed to Cobalt there and fell in love with the character and the world. I've tried to track it down and pursue it myself to make a movie out of it. Also I felt like the thing that's cool about Cobalt is it does have a culty kind of underground quality to it that I really like.

I aim my movies, as much as I can, at myself. I think that those movies have an interesting quality. They're very movieish. They are movie movies. Like I think Watchmen is a very self-aware movie. 300. Dawn of the Dead definitely. That's really where I've ended up.

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.