Before Jaws (1975), there was no such thing as a summer blockbuster. It's my favorite film of all time. My production company is called Bad Hat Harry, which is a line in Jaws. Everything comes back to Jaws. It defines us. It created the summer movie. It still scares the shit out of people today and is one of the most structurally unconventional films in the mainstream lexicon. Basically, the first half of the movie is An Enemy of the People (1978) and the second half is Moby Dick (1956). It's two movies, split in half right down the middle, and it works remarkably. It changed the course of film history.

One thing that interests me is the notion of ancient mutants. What would people, thousands of years ago, without the benefit of science, think mutants were? And more importantly, what would mutants, thousands of years ago, think they were? Gods? Titans? Angels? Demons? And if such mutants did exist thousands of years ago, what became of them? Did one survive?

On Tom Cruise: If you look at Tom's work, there's a lot of very strange characters. People very often leap right to the Mission: Impossible and the Top Gun roles when they think of him. But he started as a character actor in Taps (1981) - nobody really thought of him as a leading man until Risky Business (1983). And then after Top Gun he was a superstar. But look, there's Rain Man (1988), where he plays a real prick. And he played the hitman in Collateral (2004). He really is interested in playing challenging roles; he's a terrific actor. I really think he's an actor who happens to be a movie star.

There's no point in making films unless you intend to show us something special, otherwise just go out and watch a play. Kubrick showed us something special. Every film was a challenge, and a direct assault on cinema's conventions.

I identify with Superman. I am adopted, I am an only child, and I love the idea that he comes from another world, that he's the ultimate immigrant. He has all these extraordinary powers, and he has a righteousness about him.

Superman has always been about Lois Lane, Superman and Clark Kent and this love triangle between these three people who really are only two people.

[About casting Brandon Routh as Superman/Clark Kent in Superman Returns (2006)]: I was always dead set on casting an unknown. Brandon embodied the character the best -- his acting talent, physical presence and personality.

[About Superman's costume for Superman Returns (2006)]: I always had the general idea of the suit. With X-Men, although they had extraordinary powers, they also had physical weaknesses. The suits were for protection as well as costume. Superman is the Man of Steel. Bullets bounce off him, not the suit.