I love working with actors. That’s what the set really is, for me. It’s my time with the actors.
I’m very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman.
The only thing that takes away from it is when they steal some music from one of my movies and put it in a TV commercial. I am not crazy about influencing TV commercials. But if I legitimately influence someone making a movie, I think that is really flattering.
That’s the kind of movie that I like to make, where there is an invented reality and the audience is going to go someplace where hopefully they’ve never been before. The details, that’s what the world is made of.
I will say that Edward Norton, who plays the scout master, would be a first-rate Eagle Scout. He’s got all those techniques. If your plane crashes into the jungle somewhere, he would be the guy you would want to have with you.
I usually set aside a lot of time in advance of a movie with important roles for kids to search, but when you have great ones, they can be a real ace in the hole.
The thing with animation is that you record the actors like a radio show and then the animators become actors in their own way because it’s their job to take this puppets and make them seem alive. They bring their own personalities to the way they move these puppets.
I have always wanted to work in the theater. I’ve always felt the glamour of being backstage and that excitement, but I’ve never actually done it – not since I was in 5th grade, really. But I’ve had many plays in my films. I feel like maybe theater is a part of my movie work.
Any romantic feelings for a 12-year-old are like entering into a fantasy world.
I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience.
The subject of an outsider who becomes obsessed.
One of the things I enjoyed the most is just working as an actor.
When you’re doing a live-action movie, you have your day set up and you’re going to do this shot and this shot, and eventually the sun is going to go down. It’s a sequential race to whatever is going to end the day.
A prototype is always more expensive than anything.
People often call and say: “Can you help me to get Bill Murray in our movie.” But I’m always like, “well I don’t know how to do that!” I’ve sometimes tried and not been able to get him but then I’ll suddenly be very surprised by the thing that he will suddenly decide to do.
The things that are more my own style are something that I don’t really have to think about. The only time I have to think about them is if I want to force myself not to do it the way I do it.
The kids are the ones that have a clarity about what they want. They don’t have any wisdom, but they do have a clear understanding about what they want to have happen.
Some of the ideas are kind of inspired by the songs, and I always want to use music to tell the story and give the movie a certain kind of mood. That’s always essential to me.
When you finish work, practically everybody in that place is going to watch a movie at night anyway. They’re tired. They have dinner. They go up to their room. They’re watching TV.
Animating is a very slow, pain-staking process and the animators become the actors at that point.
I’ve always loved stop motion animation and I particularly wanted to do stop motion with puppets that have fur, for whatever reason that is.