When I heard the Pogues, I connected with the songs immediately, but it was also the first time I didn't reject out of hand the kind of music that my parents had always tried to push on to us when we were growing up.

Though it may not seem like it, I never try to write about a place, per se; it's always, first and last, about story. Story is everything. Story and a bit of attitude.

I never, ever drink while writing. Never have from the start, and I'm happy that I never have to. A lot of my stuff is plot-driven and mathematical, and I think you need a clean and sober mind to pin down the logistics of that.

I seldom feel comfortable in a theatre. I always feel like I own a cinema. I feel equally happy in an empty one as a full one. Probably happier in an empty one!

It's not only imagination, it's the distortion of the vision. You suddenly think, This person is idealistic, this person is strong, this person has dreams, when you know better most of the time. You put what you want to see on people.

Most of the time, as an artist, I can be self-indulgent, fulfilling my own impulses, embracing imagery that contains poetry on my own terms, without immediate regard to an audience or the particular placement of my finished work.

It's a very hard thing for all of us to accept ourselves at all the different stages - the horrible side, the wonderful side, the adorable side - and who you are as a grownup. And then to bring what you learned as a child to that grownup: that is the magic of creativity.

The most fun about working with special effects is that you have to really rely on your imagination to build the scene. You can't actually see how what you're doing will fit in ultimately and you look silly while doing it but when you see the finished product it becomes something amazing!