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My respect for animators and animation directors has gone way, way up and it is just not something you can phone in.

In terms of animation, animators are actors as well. They are fantastic actors. They have to draw from how they feel emotionally about the beat of a scene that they're working on. They work collaboratively.

It's like, the more you commit, the happier the animators are; if you're at all iffy and concerned, then it doesn't free them up to do as much fun stuff, so you have to just go for it and, again, trust the people around you and not be seemingly guarded and numb. Throw caution to the wind a bit.

There are times when the writers ask us to improvise. Sometimes the animators are inspired by what you do, and sometimes you are inspired by what the animators do.

People who get into animation tend to be kids. We don't have to grow up. But also, animators are great observers, and there's this childlike wonder and interest in the world, the observation of little things that happen in life.

When you do animation - well, straightforward animation, although it's not straightforward - the voice for a character or something, they're always singular experiences, really.

I've always wanted to be an animator. That's an ultimate art form, right there.

The great thing about the animation process is that is goes from, I write the lines, it goes to the actors, the actors bring a whole world to that, they bring the characters to life, then it goes to the animators, then it goes to the editor who cuts it together, and then you screen it and it goes back through the system again.

To direct a genuinely animated film, you're really having meetings and discussing what you want with animators who then go off and produce one shot at a time that you look at and comment on.