The biggest accomplishment, in racial terms, for Barack Obama was being elected. He had to overcome his blackness to be elected. He climbed the Mt. Everest of American politics, becoming an historic first.
I wanted to reveal how genetic code is translated into protein. I knew a great application could be for antibiotics, since half of the useful ones target the ribosomes, but I didn't believe I could contribute to it. It was like the next Mount Everest to conquer. It was my dream to contribute something to humanity.
Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.
Let's not mince words: Everest doesn't attract a whole lot of well-balanced folks. The self-selection process tends to weed out the cautious and the sensible in favor of those who are single-minded and incredibly driven. Which is a big reason the mountain is so dangerous.
Sure, climbing Mount Everest would be cool, but that's something I would now like to do as a family. Big experiences like that I don't want to have on my own anymore. I want to share them.
I've become quite a serious explorer: I've been to Everest three times; I'm the oldest man to reach the North Pole; and I've just been to the lost world of Venezuela.
I really wanted to make 'Everest' visceral, real. One thing that amazed me when I was scouting in base camp is the volume of Everest: It's humbling. I wanted to find a way to bring that to the screen. One way was 3D.
To get ready to climb Everest, I did a lot of hill running with a daypack on and a lot of underwater swimming. I would swim a couple of lengths underwater and then a couple above. It gets your body going with limited oxygen.
It's amazing that more people have climbed Mount Everest than have broken the 4-minute mile.
Most of the planet's terrestrial surfaces are visually accessible through video cameras and satellite imagery, if not physically within reach. Even the approaches to Mount Everest are now littered with human debris. One can drive to Timbuktu, which for centuries was synonymous with inaccessibility.
I climbed Mount Everest. I don't quit.
