In film, you're painting a canvas. I got really excited about that.
When you move handheld, and the director of photography has the courage to shoot with no lights, the set becomes a space of creativity and freedom where actors can move wherever they want to move.
The Lighthouse' couldn't have been made without this kind of freedom that is allowed to some filmmakers to be able to play around with genre. Jennifer Kent's 'Nightingale' is more horrific than any horror movie - but also, I don't think you could make that movie without this kind of freedom.
Underground, raw movies that come out of nowhere and change everything - they aren't slick-looking. But I have nothing against slick-looking as long as the scripts are funny.
I revel in movies where the monsters tower more over the tiny budgets than the characters they threaten.
Make movies that you want to go and watch in a theatre.
You never want to have a movie be derivative, because that's the worst if you ask me. I always want to be in original material, or an original idea, or an original vision, rather than a rehash of some other movie.
Adaptations are fun for me because they connect to the idea of filmmaking I had when I was a kid. I would see a movie and think: 'I'm gonna make that movie.'
I don't know if there's a problem with original ideas... I think a healthy film industry should have a good supply of good, original writing.
A simple love story can be made into an interesting film if the film-maker can think differently.
I like movies that have strong personalities, and Michel Gondry is so creative that his films are always something special to watch.
It's one of my obsessions to come up with ways to reimagine establishing shots in new, non-boring ways. Shots that have energy and excitement.
I've always wanted to be involved in an exorcism movie. But I thought, "How do you make something scarier than The Exorcist?" The answer is you don't. But that doesn't mean you can't make something that is original and interesting.
Come on, you can't do a film about an upside-down world and not have an upside-down kiss!
