It's more fun if you can control things like lighting and make special effects in the darkroom.

I spent four months in Prague in these blue rooms reacting to nothing and you basically place your faith in the hands of the director and the special effects co-coordinator and you keep your fingers crossed and hope that the creatures look really scary.

I saw a segment of Douglas Trumbull's special effects for 'Blade Runner' on the KNBC-TV news. I recognized it immediately. It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly.

I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they're missing the key element.

Special effects are characters. Special effects are essential elements. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.

I'm frustrated with Hollywood and television and the movies because they see science fiction as an excuse for eye candy, for lots of great special effects.

Fantasy is my favorite genre for reading and writing. We have more options than anyone else, and the best props and special effects. That means if you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead.

I really love the independent movies and I just think that sometimes when they throw a lot of money into it and a lot of special effects and a lot of stunts that you lose the connection, the human connection and I personally love movies that are about the human connection.

Asylum was good exposure for me and it is still shown quite often on television. I remember the special effects people had fun making a little doll that looked like me - which is not so easy - and it had to move along the floor.

Special effects movies have taken over the universe. That and scary movies.

I had no special effects, no monsters running around, nothing blew up; those things are all things I've done so many times that they lose their allure after a while.

Every other movie is one of those action things. I mean, 'Lost in Space'? A bunch of good actors running around shooting at special effects on a soundstage? I took my kids to see that and felt like I was on an acid trip.

Any horror element is as much psychological as special effects.

There were challenges with production because of the special effects. There are just some things that, although written, special effects just isn't able to do.

That's the thing with sci-fi and action roles. You have to play the danger as real. If you don't, you end up with egg on your face. You have to commit. You can't think about how stupid it might look without the special effects.

In special effects, you can cheat to make it look good. In real science, you have to have results.

What was frustrating about Armageddon was the time I spent not doing anything. It was a big special effects film, and I wasn't crazy about pretending I was in outer space. It feels ridiculous.

I like doing as many special effects in camera, as much as possible.

I mean, I have done scenes with animals, with owls, with bats, with cats, with special effects, with thespians, in the freezing cold, in the pouring rain, boiling hot; I've done press with every syndication, every country; I've done interviews with people dressed up as cows - there's honestly nothing that's gonna intimidate me!

People often tell me how much they love the digital skies that we obviously painted for 'War Horse.' Well, there's not a single sky that we put in through special effects. The skies you see in the movie are the skies that we experienced - but it was definitely challenging at times.