Kelly Asbury

I'm a lover of the great adventure films of the 1980s: 'Goonies,' 'E.T.,' 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' 'Star Wars.'

In animation, there's not a medium I believe that's more collaborative. It is a team of people, of different disciplines, coming together. The decisions are made by consensus in many cases. My job as a director is to exercise the best judgement I can in terms of which decision is the best one to make for the movie.

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.

Animation tends to have several different writers who serve different functions. I think, on a lot of animated features, there are a lot of writers who don't get credited. It's the policy at Disney, for instance, in deciding who gets credit. It depends on the writer's contract, so many things.

Every animated film that I've worked on - whether it was as a story artist or as Head of Story or even as director - where we originally started out with our story and where we eventually ended up were often very different places.

I want the audience to walk out of the theater feeling they got their money's worth. Every movie that I enjoy, I leave the theater with something to take with me.

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.

It happens a lot that a name actor will be signed on to a project in its germ stage.

My favorite films left the camera rest, and the actors and characters have a stage to act. Move the camera when it's motivating.

I don't want to be the one accused of ruining the Smurfs.

I love all sorts of movies, whether made by Scorsese or Frank Capra. I love them all.

I think what's universal about the story of 'Romeo and Juliet' is every one has grown up and done something that was rebellious against their parents' wishes, be it love or something else.