I've made my mind up that I will only do a film that I really, really love. I'm determined to lie low until a role comes along that really makes me want to work.
When you work on a Jerry Bruckheimer film, you can be sure of two things: no production value will be spared, and the catering will be as fine as any really really good restaurant. Jerry is an amazing producer, with a commitment to his films second to none.
Most development doesn't make it to series. So you want the writer and director to have a really good experience with development because, if it doesn't work out, you want to work with them again. You have to know their work really well, know the drafts really well, and when you give notes, you need to have really thought them through.
The choice that you really have is that you can go and work for TV which is so badly paid that you have to really churn them out which I think probably helps you develop certain muscles. I'm not sure though that you really want to have those muscles as a director.
My cousins and my uncle have been iconic heroes in the industry and I don't think I'm anywhere close to that, but I'm happy that they like my work. They are my elders and it's natural for me to look up to them.
I think we probably will end up in America because he would be giving up much more to come and live here. If you want to work in film, that's really where you have to be. But I'm not sure that being an ex-pat is very good for one's sense of self.
I didn't want to be part of that tradition of French cinema that wasn't really watched by the people of my age. I didn't really care to be in the last André Téchiné or Claude Chabrol movie, even though some of them are really interesting. For me, it was much more important to work with Mathieu Kassovitz or Gaspar Noé. It was for me a question of identity.
It's really quite an interesting dynamic. I wanted to play to the truth of who Manute was in the first film, while it's also a prequel and the originator [of the story]. It was an interesting dynamic to work with, definitely. I haven't seen the film yet, but the way it felt when I was doing it, it felt like it worked.
I want to go places where there are really well-meaning people doing work that is interesting and seems to really matter and where everybody looks like at least once a day they have a really good laugh.
If a psychiatrist would analyze [the lyrics], I'm sure they'd come up with something interesting. I really don't try to twist them. I don't want to slash things.
Fly flight is just a great phenomenon to study. It has everything - from the most sophisticated sensory biology; really, really interesting physics; really interesting muscle physiology; really interesting neural computations.
If the entire script feels formulaic, then you know that the film will be like that. But if it's a really interesting script, and the character happens to be formulaic, then maybe there's a way of making them more interesting.
I want make sure I'm showing up for the people I'm really close to and my family, and so finding a balance is really important. But I don't want to quit drag at all. I want to be 90 years old and I want them to prop me up in the doorway and have hot dudes dance around me like Mae West. I really do!
We say to the Creator of all this magnitude and majesty, ‘Well, I’m not sure You are worth it…. You see, I really like my car, or my little sin habit, or my money, and I’m really not sure I want to give them up, even if it means I get You.’
I like the idea of seeing a film that has the artist's hand in there,a film where you can see his strokes, you can see his working patterns. It's like going to a museum and seeing a Renoir drawing. You want to see their work and you want to see how they put it together. For me to see that in animation is really fresh, it's really exciting, it's really original.
As a director, your job is to make sure no one for any reason is taken out of the film. Sometimes it's impossible and sometimes things don't come out the way you want them to, but I think you have to work really hard at making the world engrossing and details are a major part of that.