I've always been interested in the industrialization of our food; it's been an issue for me from an environmental and animal rights and human health perspective.
When eventually I started to act a bit more, I realised that circus school had taught me something that a lot of actors my age didn't have: physicality. They didn't know how to move. Acting is not all about talking. There is something animalistic about it.
Having a family is really important. And there would be something missing in my life as a woman if I didn't at least attempt to fulfil that side of me. Just for a certain period of your life, to have your sole purpose to be nurturing, feeding and protecting someone else: it's animalistic, isn't it? It's beautiful.
I spent a long part of my childhood repressing my more animalistic desire systems, and in a way, it permits me to do some of the stuff that I would want to be doing in a way that's more comfortable and doesn't break my internal rules. It expands the realm of possibility.
I love that quiet time when nobody's up and the animals are all happy to see me.
I want to be the first person to animate bags - everything done for handbags bores me to tears - I want to make it more playful.
To get to be part of a video game is... it's pretty neat. That somebody animated me is very exciting and weird.
I have yet to meet anyone quite so stubborn as myself and animated by this overpowering passion that leaves me no time for thought or anything else. I have, in fact, no interest in life outside racing cars.
The animated bug has bitten pop culture. It makes me feel happy and free. When you don't act seriously, you can make up your own rules.
As a director, I'm not the one animating every frame, every shot. I'm moving around like a surgeon on rounds, or a farmer checking in on all the plants being grown, pruning and adjusting. For me, it's a very exciting job.
Global warming, the ongoing destruction of the planet, Third World debt, the uselessness of the railways, the takeover by the corporations, the scary George Bush person: all these things are important and should be animating me into outrage. Yet somehow they do not.
When I started working with a computer, to me it was kind of like animating with a backhoe. But when you see the results, it just blows your mind.
I think of Ray Harryhausen's work - I knew his name before I knew any actor or director's names. His films had an impact on me very early on, probably even more than Disney. I think that's what made me interested in animation: His work.
When I get up in the morning and put on a pink or a green wig, I see myself as a piece of animation. It lets me be the person I want to be, a person who's not embarrassed to have fun.
Short films really helped me develop as a story teller, animator, and as a director.
I wanted to be an animator originally. I went to art school; I went to art college and everything. But that screen was just calling me.
With my own cartoon, it was just me being goofy by myself, but when it comes to an animated film, you're working with 45 animators and assistant animators. It's a whole different ballgame.
I was at Disney for about four years, so I made good friends there. It was a time of not a lot of creativity. It was the end of the first great era, with a few of the original animators. They called them the Nine Old Men. I learned a lot from them, but it wasn't going to be a future home for me.
Inside me, 'Dragon Ball' became a thing of the past, but later, I got upset at the live-action film, revised the script for the anime film, and complained about the quality of the TV anime. I guess, at some point, it became a work that I like so much that I can't leave it alone.
I do enjoy a bit of the fantasy world that anime provides, but at the same time, I need the reality in it. I'm very much a stickler about the actual animation. I'm not into the cutesy, stereotypical animation with big eyes and a small chin. That annoys the hell out of me.
