My first obligation is to entertain but as far as science fiction goes, it's much easier to comment on today from another time because people then aren't focused on 'did you get the details right?' It's sort of a Trojan horse approach to ideas because it's wrapped in the future, it's wrapped in action, thriller.

I make movies. I'm not in politics.

As soon as you made a decision that time is going to be currency, then it should be a reflection of what's happening today. And obviously, it is.

You have two choices when someone changes your work. You can either wash your hands of it or embrace it.

It's always interesting for me that people vote against their interests.

We hear so much about weapons of mass destruction. But nine out of 10 war victims are killed by guns. It's the AK-47 that's a weapon of mass destruction.

Nine out of 10 war victims die from a gun.

I have so much to grapple with, I don't think too much about me. People call it the dance of a thousand egos when you make a movie. If only I had time to worry when I was making a movie about what the hell I was doing. It's sort of a marathon every day. And then at the end of it, you beg the producers for five more marathons.

It's so hard to go to war at home. Go to war, go home, repeat. And that is the future of warfare. Forget about remote control drones, there's going to be remote control tanks.

If we could switch off the aging gene we would. There's no technology that we've had that we haven't used. We are in the capital of staying young forever.

I lived in England for a long time, and even the English didn't think me as one of theirs. In America I'm not really accepted. In New Zealand now, I don't think they even think of me as a New Zealander.

A schizophrenic war is not an easy thing to deal with.

Sometimes I'll be channel surfing or something, and I'll see a glimpse of something, and I'll quickly turn the sound down, and then what I look at, that's an interesting movie. But it's not me who made it. It's whoever that guy I was 10 years ago who made it.

While we can't turn off the aging gene, we do go to a lot of extremes to stay young, I've noticed.

I just don't analyze what I do, because I'm afraid I won't be able to do it anymore. I'm sort of superstitious. And that's why I've never looked back at any movie I've done.