Quotes from Duncan Jones

J. G. Ballard is just an example of the writers I like. Philip K. Dick is obviously one of them. I'm a big fan of William Gibson as well. He started cyberpunk with 'Neuromancer.' I've come to know him a little bit over Twitter, of all places, and I was always a huge fan of his. It's very cool to know he even knows I exist.

The beauty of science fiction is that it takes the audience's guard down; they're much more willing to open themselves up and allow themselves to be questioned and have their values questioned when they don't think we're talking about their world or them and what they're used to.

I went to college and graduate school, studying philosophy. I really did think I was going to wind up being a lecturer or professor of some sort.

I'm not the guy who does slo-mo, or I'm not the guy who does splashing rain or doves flying or anything; that's not me. Every film, I try and make it the way I see it in my head, and it really just depends on the script and the people I'm working with or whatever interests me at that particular time.

I played lots of games, and I was a fan of gaming, so I was always looking for new games. I was also a science fiction and fantasy fan, growing up, in games and books and movies.

I'm a bit of a geek, actually. So I always wanted my first film to be science fiction.

I was a little geeky kid anyway. If I wasn't shooting little stop-animation films, then I was playing computer games or Dungeons & Dragons.

My parents did call me Zowie now and then, but then, realising that it drew too much attention, they called me 'Joe'. Then, later, I sort-of co-opted my own name back.

Every film I try and make it the way I see it in my head, and it really just depends on the script and the people I'm working with or whatever interests me at that particular time.

Toshiro Mifune was such an elegant hero, and there's something really empathetic about him.

When Peter Jackson made the 'Lord of the Rings' movies, I remember there was a concern that people who didn't read Tolkien wouldn't go see the first one. But the films were so good in their own right that the audience grew beyond the readership of the book.

I've worked really hard to build up a career on my own. I turned 30 recently and it took me a long time to get the chance to make a feature film and do it on my own terms.

Hopefully, by the second or the third film, who my father is won't be a story anyone's interested in. They'll either like the films or they won't, and if they don't like them, I won't be making them any more.

I'd done a bachelor's degree, which I'd enjoyed, but I didn't know what to do with my life at the time. I was conflicted, and, being a hopeless romantic, I followed my girlfriend at the time to Vanderbilt, where, obviously, we broke up a couple of months later.

Motion capture has become very specialized but also still just a tool of filmmaking.

I guess, as a director, you sort of take the script, and you find ways to interpret it.

It seems like the reason that I miss the science fiction from the late '70s and '80s is that at that period, they really were doing interesting, introspective human stories that just happened to take place in science fiction settings.

I was always bit of a jock.

I watched the German version of 'Baron Munchasen' and Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' at a young age. 'Star Wars' was also a huge thing when I was a kid.

I think that idea of being far away from the people that you love is something that everyone can relate to.

Girls seem to get me in trouble a lot of times.

The thing is that Warcraft has so much story available to it. For the fans, there are some key stories they really want to see on screen. I won't be doing those.

We can't tell particularly smart stories if we want to keep our audience big enough to pay for these big spectacle films that we want to do.

I got some funky scholarships to play soccer and did well in my SATs, so I went off to college and then grad school but found that that wasn't me. My family, relieved I seemed to have come to my senses, were happy to let me go to film school.