I`m making movies for the masses.

I think sport in general affects what people see in movies. I always try to explain to people in Hollywood that we have to make movies more like sport because, in sport, everything can happen and it`s so much better than movies in some ways.

When you`re not loved by the critics, it`s very hard for anyone to say anything good about your movie. For me, it`s more important that the audience enjoys it and embraces it, anyway. You get something that does well, but is criticized. So you say, `OK, they just didn`t get it. There`s 1% or 2% who didn`t like it. But there`s 98% who did.

There`s not really much destruction in New York besides the weather and it`s a natural force so it`s not like any destruction. But LA gets leveled (laughs). That`s my comment to Hollywood.

I`m only a stupid filmmaker.

Everybody knows that the industrialized nations are the worst offenders.

It`s like everybody is obsessed with Hollywood movies worldwide. And even though everybody hates the Americans, they`re still watching American movies.

Nobody makes movies bad on purpose.

I thought it must be pure science fiction. But when I checked it out I found a lot of magazine articles that actually supported the theory behind the book which was incredible. That`s when I decided to acquire the rights of the book and everything went from there.

When you find something where you can give people a message and still make it an exciting movie, you get very, very excited about something. You probably even work harder than you normally do.

I came to film school in 1977 when directors like Fassbinder and Wenders were everybody`s heroes. But it was also the time that Star Wars and Close Encounters came out, and these were the seminal movies for me. Everybody is always so careful about these things. I mean, I`m good friends with Wim Wenders, but it doesn`t mean I have to like his movies. Some of them, I like. Most of them, I find boring. And I would tell him that to his face.

... all my movies are created because I`m fascinated by a subject. Sometimes I think there`s just a certain obsession about it all - when you want to do something just for the sake of it. A lot of directors are like that. I`m just very fortunate that most of my movies get made.

It doesn`t really matter if this movie`s a success or not, because it`s already out there.

There`s a rule in Hollywood: stay away from water and stay away from snow, and I had both.

I`m a filmmaker, not a scientist.