I think what's universal about the story of 'Romeo and Juliet' is every one has grown up and done something that was rebellious against their parents' wishes, be it love or something else.
Films like 'The Wizard of Oz' and 'Shrek' are hits because they hit on different levels with different age groups. Striking that balance is what I strive for. But I won't know if I've done it until the audience sees it.
I want the audience to walk out of the theater feeling they got their money's worth. Every movie that I enjoy, I leave the theater with something to take with me.
Animation tends to have several different writers who serve different functions. I think, on a lot of animated features, there are a lot of writers who don't get credited. It's the policy at Disney, for instance, in deciding who gets credit. It depends on the writer's contract, so many things.
Certainly in the case of 'Gnomeo & Juliet,' if it makes children or adults a little more interested in Shakespeare, there's nothing wrong with that!
The Smurfs - and they're this way in Peyo's comics as well - do have a rubbery indestructibility about them. They can get bruised & battered. But they then just sort of bounce back very quickly, like those classic cartoon characters Wiley Coyote and Tom & Jerry.
There's a lot of movies, and I've made some of them that could be categorized this way, but there's definitely been a trend in animated features of all types to be a little bit cynical, if you will, to have a little bit of 'knowing' humor to them, kind of a wink to the audience.
I think Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet' is a work of genius.
I think 'West Side Story' is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, musicals ever put onscreen - or stage, for that matter. I, frankly, like Zeffirelli's 'Romeo and Juliet' very much, too. I grew up with that... I loved it. I loved the score; I loved the acting.
Gnomes are supposed to be good luck in a garden, protecting against pests and diseases. A mythic gatekeeper, in the way a Kitchen Witch is.
We are all rebellious teenagers. Sometimes we grow out of it, and sometimes we don't.
Shrek is the Mickey Mouse of DreamWorks.
In animation, there's not a medium I believe that's more collaborative. It is a team of people, of different disciplines, coming together. The decisions are made by consensus in many cases. My job as a director is to exercise the best judgement I can in terms of which decision is the best one to make for the movie.
I don't want to be the one accused of ruining the Smurfs.
I wish I had been a child when the Smurfs came on television.
The way I choose voice talent is I don't let them tell me who the actor is.
My favorite films left the camera rest, and the actors and characters have a stage to act. Move the camera when it's motivating.
Every animated film that I've worked on - whether it was as a story artist or as Head of Story or even as director - where we originally started out with our story and where we eventually ended up were often very different places.
Tim Burton, let's face it: he's into stitches.
On 'Shrek,' Eddie Murphy was locked in as the donkey before we'd even designed the donkey.
