We are all rebellious teenagers. Sometimes we grow out of it, and sometimes we don't.

A lot of people say to me, 'Is this good, to do to a Shakespeare piece?' And I think, 'You know, 'West Side Story' did it very cleverly, in a different way.' But if you look at 'Bonnie and Clyde,' 'Titanic,' 'Avatar,' 'Grease,' 'Brokeback Mountain'... they're all 'Romeo and Juliet' stories.

Shrek is the Mickey Mouse of DreamWorks.

On 'Shrek,' Eddie Murphy was locked in as the donkey before we'd even designed the donkey.

The Smurfs - and they're this way in Peyo's comics as well - do have a rubbery indestructibility about them. They can get bruised & battered. But they then just sort of bounce back very quickly, like those classic cartoon characters Wiley Coyote and Tom & Jerry.

When you have a name actor, with a face that people recognise and a name that can go on posters or billboards and be able to appear on the talkshow circuit and tout the film, that's always a plus.