SCOTT DERRICKSON

'Orthodoxy' is the seminal book of ideas in my life. That book I've read more than any other book. It's the spinal column that leads up to my brain and informs the way I think. Flannery O'Connor is my favorite American writer.

I think after 'The Day The Earth Stood Still,' I really stopped thinking strategically about my career. I just did. At that point, it became crystal clear to me that you can strategise your career all you want, but it's so difficult to get a movie made, and creativity shouldn't be subjected to that kind of strategic thinking.

In my films, I either want the music to be very subtle and very buried or just put it right out in front and be super blunt with it.

I grew up reading comics - mostly Marvel - Doctor Strange was my favourite comic book and has remained my favourite as an adult. It's the only comic book movie property I've ever gone after. I felt uniquely suited to it.

I think it's difficult to be a Christian anywhere, at least to be a committed Christian - I think that demands a lot from a person no matter their field of work, and certainly working in Hollywood is no exception.

I always liked the idea in 'Potter' that you don't choose the wand, the wand chooses you, and that relics decide when you're ready to handle them. I'm a cinephile first and a filmmaker second, and it's all swimming in the subconscious.

In a science fiction film, you're uniquely responsible to pay respect to the science represented in the movie.

Kurosawa is my hero, and I've taught courses on his films, and I love what he does, and 'Rashomon' is, I think, his second greatest film after 'Ikiru.'

I wasn't born into a religious home, but I was just not a materialist. I didn't believe the material world was all there was or, even, most of what there was. I always felt that I was part of a reality of which the majority was unseen.

In my opinion, the horror genre is a perfect genre for Christians to be involved with. I think the more compelling question is, Why do so many Christians find it odd that a Christian would be working in this genre?

Catholicism is so steeped in imagery. It's one of the many reasons Catholicism has given birth to so many great filmmakers compared to the Protestant tradition - even in America, where we're primarily Protestant.

My understanding of religion and science is that they're both arrogant schools of thought, and whether they acknowledge it or not they continually broadcast the idea that they have the world figured out. And what they don't know, they have a theory for which is probably correct. It feels like that shrinks the world, rather than expands it.

I became a Christian within a fundamentalist church. I saw 'A Thief in the Night' on a 16 mm. print when I was in the eighth grade, and I got the whole scare speech from our pastors. 'Do you want to be left here, left behind, for the Tribulation? If not, then come forward.'

Trauma and pain and suffering can be the very thing that dislodges a person from themselves both in awful ways and larger ways that force one to reckon with one's own life.

I've never been a materialist; I've never been somebody who believes in only what we can see and measure. I continue to be a student of religious philosophy, and I continue to take those ideas very seriously.

I can't imagine making something that is made only to be scary. For me, the darkness and scary material has to have meaning attached to it, or I can't invest the time and energy it takes to write and script or make a movie. It has to mean something.

When I was hired to write and direct a movie, my Christian duty suddenly became quite clear: My primary duty as a Christian in Hollywood is to do my job well.

The momentum of my creative life and intellectual growth is still the momentum of breaking out of fundamentalism. Because of that, I'm very grateful for it. But I'm also grateful that at the center of it was something that I still believe to be true - those fundamentals of faith.

If you really look hard at the evidence, the most rational conclusion is to believe that the demonic is real.

We've all watched hundreds of movies from characters' points of view that are not our own. That's part of the gift movies give us.

I'm an orthodox Christian. When people ask me if I'm a Christian, I always want to qualify and know what they mean by that. I'm not a Republican, and I'm not right wing. I'm not a dispensationalist. I don't think the world's about to end.

The marketing of my movies is something I have no control over! I usually am shown things to give input beforehand. Some directors get really involved with that, but it's not what I do. I don't know anything about marketing; it's not my skill set!

What I desire most in my life is to become a better person. I genuinely want to be good.

If you look at life with any honesty and intelligence, it's clear that human nature is dark, vile, selfish, and despondent. But I also see a force in human nature, namely grace, that sometimes works against our natural moral entropy.

For something to be completely evil is to be nothing. Satan has good attributes - intelligence, for instance - but they are corrupted. I cannot reconcile myself emotionally to alternative understandings of evil.