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There's something so glorious in giving control to the world. I think that's what I'm trying to do in my films - control the world but also let it be chaotic, let there be life.

The trick of making movies in this culture is how to not give up everything that makes them worthwhile in order to get them made - and that's a tricky balance.

The privilege I've had over 15 movies over a very long time has been to make movies that were ambitious or grown-up, complex, that had themes in them that were sometimes political, sometimes challenging, to make these movies on a scale.

There comes a point in your moviegoing life where you look at the screen and then you look at the world and you ask, 'What is going on?' You want the movies to show you the chaos and mess and risk and failure that are normal for a lot of us. Generally, the movies hide all of that.

The truth is, it's a totalitarian dictatorship when you're making films. You are the boss. You can listen to other people, and it can be a benevolent dictatorship, but it's a dictatorship nonetheless. A lot of directors go past their first experience, that's what they've come away with.

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

I think sci-fi films have become rather bleak, and understandably so - I think we've made some big mistakes globally with how we're developing, and we deal with that guilt by creating these very dystopian futures in films.

It's good to have a governing body to oversee matters in making of films, but you can't blame films for what is happening in society.

I'm fascinated with films that deal with strategy because there's a right way and a wrong way to get the job done.