Biography

Frequently casts John Cho.

Like many people with a Y chromosome, I hadn't delved into the Twilight books. I tried to experience the books in the way that I thought the average reader would - which is to gobble them. The way that you read a book at 13 is different. You read it at a gallop, while you are eating. You avoid human contact. I read New Moon over the course of a day and a half in Ojai, Calif., at a very crunchy retreat that included a sweat lodge. Actually, my only pause was for a sweat lodge during which I asked the Quileute ancestors to come and give me good luck. Somewhere Jacob Black was pleased. I was channeling Team Jacob because he needs it in this movie. Everyone already knows about Edward.

I wouldn't have made The Golden Compass (2007) had I known that the final version put out on screens was not as I intended it. I didn't get to show my version of the film. Unfortunately, that version really can't be finished because it would cost somewhere between 15 and 17 million dollars just to complete the special effects. I look at the film that's out there now and all I can be proud of is certain moments, the casting, the effects and the look. But the final product, I can't vouch for that. I do feel badly towards the fans of the book. I promised to deliver but wasn't able to do so.

[on the box office failure of The Golden Compass]: The Golden Compass became a bad experience because the studio didn't have faith in the strength of the ideas of the novel, which is ironic because it's one of the greatest fantasy novels ever written, if not the greatest, and they took the religion out of it and tried to turn it into a popcorn movie. We had an inferior product, which was trying to avoid anything with any religious content in it, which emasculated the film. I think there were some very unwise decisions that led to its financial ruin here, and in turn, to the destruction of New Line as we knew it.