J. J. ABRAMS

As a director/writer/producer, all you ever want is to work with actors who make you look better, who make the work you do seem as good as it can be and even better than it is.

I am lucky, I'm the first to admit that.

Obviously with the Internet and increased access to other means of watching shows, the audience has dispersed and is all over the place and that is a challenge.

You can never guess or assume what anyone is going to think.

When there's an authentic mystery, as opposed to just a question being asked, that's what makes you lean forward.

Ratings have changed, viewer habits have changed and the options for the audience have grown enormously, but I don't think how you tell a story is fundamentally different.

When I was a kid, it was a huge insult to be a geek. Now it's a point of pride in a weird way.

I have no style. There are certain people who just have a visual sense that defines their work. You could probably watch 30 seconds of anything they do and you'll know exactly who directed it. I don't have that skill.

I love the idea of anthropomorphizing machines. I love the idea of taking technology and giving it a personality.

Making movies was more a reaction to not being chosen for sports. Other kids were out there playing at whatever; I was off making something blow up and filming it, or making a mould of my sister's head using alginating plaster.

What I'm still grappling with and learning how to do is to be looking and thinking cinematically, having come from television.

I find that it's hard to fully examine one's life and not have faith be part of the discussion.

People never know what they want, though everyone says they do. If they did, nobody would ever be surprised.

I work with really hard-working people who are really good at what they do.

'Star Trek' was always a little bit closed emotionally. I never connected to the characters.

I'm obsessed with things that are distinctly analogue.

Whenever I've directed something, there's this feeling of demand and focus that I like.

I think when you're 10 years old, it's too much to see something with the threat of death in every episode. Kids are better left naive about certain things.

It's a leap of faith doing any serialised storytelling.

I love recording music.

When you work on something that combines both the spectacular and the relatable, the hyperreal and the real, it suddenly can become supernatural. The hypothetical and the theoretical can become literal.

I feel like obviously the standard for what TV looks like changes all the time.

With three kids you are just trying to survive. You can't be fastidious.

You never want to have that ticking clock and know that you had all this time and didn't use it.

I've had the same friends since I was in kindergarten.