I think 'Paranorman' was a great adventure.

In Australia, I can just say to my mom, 'I'm going down the street.' And I can walk around pretty much all the places I know.

In L.A., I live right across from Universal Studios.

Vampires used to be like Dracula, and now they're young teenage kids, so yeah, I like that.

When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'

My mother had a master's degree and had been a schoolteacher before she started having kids at 30. But my father's family were landowners, farmer-merchants. Moneymaking was extremely important, like one of those semi-rapacious families in Lillian Hellman, where they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

If you're doing a family movie, you don't want it to be stupid. Farting chihuahuas is not my idea of entertainment for kids or adults. So you try to make a movie that adults can see on one level, and kids can see on another.

I do not think there was anything abusive in my house. Yet, I stand by a lot of my critiques of Western parenting. I think there's a lot of questions about how you instill true self-esteem.