"In terms of mind-blowing experiences, I would say the first film was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, just because I think — I’m pretty sure — that’s the first time I ever saw a live action movie in a movie theater as a kid. My dad took me and my brother to see it. I think up till then I’d only seen one animated movie in a movie theater. I think it was Robin Hood, which, for some reason, was really boring to me. But we went to see Willy Wonka, and I was so blown away, and it so freaked me out, that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for years. I had watched movies on TV and stuff, but that was the first time I think I was old enough to go to the movies, and be able to sit through a movie without wanting to get up and run around the theater. Just seeing it that big and getting sucked into it. I don’t even think I realized those were actors and that anything was fake. I think I just thought it was all real, that Charlie was a real kid, and Willy Wonka was a real person. I really think I thought it was real. I really thought the whole family lived in that one room. I was probably in second grade or something… So I probably didn’t actually think it was real, but I responded to it like it was real."

"Jason and the Argonauts is the very first movie that I ever remember watching. My parents were living in New York and I was a very young kid. And I remember being in front of my TV all alone watching skeletons fighting with swords. For me it was magic. I guess the emotion was so strong that the memory of the room and the TV still piques my mind because maybe at that age you don’t really know what a skeleton is. But watching skeletons fighting was like, “Wooh-wooh, what the f— is this?” And I have a memory of that movie that sticks in my mind of the giant — there’s a boat that goes through the legs of a big giant. I have a lot of respect for those movies, like the old King Kong, which create a grand world with the tricks. I’ve always been respectful to all the people who do visual effects and special effects, because making movies is also making magic. You can also admire a man who pretends to cut a woman to pieces in a theater because he makes these images of horror that, again, don’t hurt. That was my very first memory of this film. And I was always going to see movies since then."