Obviously, movies, you're often on location, out in the rain or the sun, in a real place where the trees and the cars are real. But when you're on stage, as an actor you're imagining the environment that you're in.
It's almost like an optical illusion, 'The Hobbit.' You look at the book, and it is really thin, and you could make a relatively thin film as well. What I mean by that is that you could race through the story at the speed that Tolkien does.
To get an Oscar would be an incredible moment in my career, there is no doubt about that. But the 'Lord of the Rings' films are not made for Oscars, they are made for the audience.
I didn't want my kids having to pass through an airport named after their father.
What I think is remarkable about my mum and dad is they had no interest in films, really. None.
It's not going to be too much longer before Xbox Live produces programming.
There are a couple of locations in 'The Hobbit' that are shared with 'Lord of the Rings.'
No film has captivated my imagination more than 'King Kong.' I'm making movies today because I saw this film when I was 9 years old.
It's not a happy time when a film drops dead on your doorstep.
I don't have an anti-Hollywood feeling. It's just I'm a New Zealander. I was born in New Zealand, and it's where my house is, and my family goes to school there. My interest is to remain in my homeland and make films. I don't really want to relocate myself to other countries in the world to work.
I've always been happy to take a gamble on myself.
I think it's important that filmmakers look at the technology and figure out how to make the theatrical experience a little more exciting.
Film is such a powerful medium. It's like a weapon and I think you have a duty to self-censor.
The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself.
The idea of an animated film is you always kind of get a little bit daunted by it as a filmmaker because it feels like a lot of your communication is going to be with computer artists, and you're going to have to kind of channel the movie through extra pairs of hands.
I was bullied and regarded as little bit of an oddball myself.
Everybody's life has these moments, where one thing leads to another. Some are big and obvious and some are small and seemingly insignificant.
I don't quite know what an auteur is.
New Zealand is not a small country but a large village.
Adapting a novel is not really about being faithful to every word and every moment the author has created. It's more about that same story being filtered through somebody else's sensibility.
I'm not going to head off and do a Marvel film. So if I don't do a Marvel film, I don't have any other choice - I've got to go make a small New Zealand movie!
I never wanted to do 'The Hobbit' in the first place.
There's a very go-to kind of attitude in New Zealand that stems from that psyche of being quite isolated and not being able to rely on the rest of the world's infrastructure.
As a filmmaker, I believe in trying to make movies that invite the audience to be part of the film; in other words, there are some films where I'm just a spectator and am simply observing from the front seat. What I try to do is draw the audience into the film and have them participate in what's happening onscreen.
Pre-preproduction is the tenuous time before a project is greenlit; before the studio commits to spending real money. This is the most vulnerable period for any film because it's the time when your project is most likely to be put into turnaround. That's film-speak for killed off.
When I was about 14, I got a splicing kit, which means you could chop up the film into little pieces and switch the order around and glue it together.
I hope one day that I'll get to make another horror film; I'd love to.
I'm always embarrassed by those rugby player autobiographies which get written by journalists.
I like to keep an open mind, but I do think there is some form of energy that exists separate to our flesh and blood. I do think that there's some kind of an energy that leaves the body when it dies, but I certainly don't have religious beliefs particularly.
I make cameos in all my movies for no particular reason other than a joke. It's just a Hitchcock thing.
Forty-eight frames per second is a way, way better way to look at 3D. It's so much more comfortable on the eyes.
I thought that there might be something unsatisfying about directing two Tolkien movies after 'Lord of the Rings.' I'd be trying to compete with myself and deliberately doing things differently.
I fell in love with stories watching a British television puppet show called 'Thunderbirds' when it first came out on TV, about 1965, so I would have been 4 or 5 years old. I went out into the garden at my mom and dad's house, and I used to play with my little dinky toys, little cars and trucks and things.
'Heavenly Creatures' was really the idea of Fran Walsh. It was a very famous New Zealand murder case, but not one that people knew much about.
You never make movies for Oscars.
I just think that we're living in a world where the technology is advancing so rapidly. You're having cameras that are capable of more and more - the resolution on cameras is jumping up.