I want to make films without a single clear message, and films that are as close as possible to what it feels like to be alive. At least to me.
Is an audience open to seeing a film that isn't what they expect when they see a film that's been adapted from a children's book?
With every film, I try and give the audiences a little more than the previous film in terms of comedy, action, drama and so on.
CGI is done after the film is done. It's through the computer. Most of the film is not computer-generated special effects. Most of it is that creature that is in the room with you.
I don't tend to get cast in the theatre much. People assume I come with all this baggage. But they do cast me in films. In films, I'm a nobody.
Basically, independent film doesn't exist anymore. It does if you have two or three stars in your film, but it's just very difficult.
I'm in 'Madagascar 2.' I'm Testy the Lion. The franchise moves to Africa, and Bernie Mac is also in the film. I loved working for Dreamworks on that film.
'Hard Boiled' is my last film in Hong Kong, before I moved to the U.S. It is the one film which is most accepted by the audience in the West.
A film like Genevieve to my contemporaries is not a film made years ago, but last week or last year. They see me as I was then, not as I am now.
Film-makers in Belgium are seen as arts and crafts makers. It is a small country. There is not really a film industry there at all.
I don't know what my favorite film of mine is... But I think the most important film I was in was 'Glory'.
When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda. If I wanted to do that, I'd make documentaries.
I'm not making films for critics, I'm making films for people to go out and enjoy.
When you work so hard on making a film, it's all worthwhile when you get to experience seeing that film with an audience who thoroughly enjoy it and react to the movie.
I teach film directing, inasmuch as you can. It's not really possible to teach film direction, but I sit there as a sort of testimony of experience and know-how, I suppose.
I think a film is a failure if it doesn't have an emotional effect. That's the film's failure. Not if it doesn't deliver a message, but if it doesn't have emotional effect or visceral effect.
For many years I wanted to do a film, but I never had the courage to clear my desk and say, 'OK I'll take a year off and do a film.'
It's very cool to be able to say that my first real film was 'Footloose' and my second film I got to star alongside Tom Cruise and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Walt Disney wasn't making films for kids. Neither were the Muppets. A lot of the great, really cool films, they weren't making them for kids.
When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980.
Sci-fi films are the epic films of the day because we can no longer put 10,000 extras in the scene - but we can draw thousands of aliens with computers.
