I think when you're doing something cutting edge like 'The Matrix,' it might mean when everybody's saying 'no' that you're really on the right track.

As a filmmaker you have to keep asking yourself the question are we really going to impress them [audience] either by the wow factor, the intelligence factor, the I didn't see that coming factor?

If a character dies, you should feel that. If a character accomplishes something, you should feel that. That's where you try to find that balance. It's impossible to articulate, as you go through it. You just have to recognize it.

Everybody has a background. Everybody has a past. Not everybody's the same person all the way through.

My backpack has seven or eight DVDs in it and four or five of them have been there three months and I'm desperate to get to them.

What I keep searching for in movies, more and more, is the right gravity.

I'm not looking for is the audience going to like it [the film during the first screening] or not. I want to hear somebody try to poke a hole in it. I want to hear why they saw the logic was flawed or why that scene was not believable.

I always believe, with any kind of hero, that you want to believe that their decision-making is right. That ultimately, I can trust what that guy's sense of right and wrong will be. Even in a vigilante movie, where you are going against the law by definition, you still want to agree with the fact that your character is breaking the law.

My experience is that you can't possibly win against whatever the tidal wave is that's coming at you.

As a producer, I try to bring as many nice people as I can to insure that there's no screaming, there's no shouting, there's no bullying. The more of those kind of people that you can bring together, the better the experience everyone has on set.

What I can't figure out is why we're not making more R-rated movies, actually.

I don't like the term 'ensemble.' It's bland to me.

It's so hard to find a director who, when you look at their body of work, you like everything.

But fundamentally, I don't think of it as an alien-invasion movie everybody's here, kind of, right? So, I think it's probably more of an action-adventure picture, if I actually had to qualify it.

I always consult five to ten people who are hardcore fans, to see how far I can push a role. When they go, Wait a second, you can't do that! That's a sin!, you go, Okay, fine, we're not going to do that. We tried too far.

Our world faces incredible economic uncertainty. The notion of what is a super power has evolved, and who actually can carry what muscle has changed.

I used to do a stunt in almost every movie. When I became an executive, all the insurance guys freaked out.