Neil Gaiman is a star. He constructs stories like some demented cook might make a wedding cake, building layer upon layer, including all kinds of sweet and sour in the mix.

I say 'spectacle' rather than 'story' because in the end, it isn't the intricacies of narrative that draw us to horror films. When it's there, I'm grateful for the director's skill at telling an exquisitely nuanced tale filled with psychological insight, but it is the spectacles that I take home with me.

My grandfather was a ship's cook, and he came back from the Far East very often with strange little toys. One of the things he brought back was a puzzle box, which obsessed me for a long time.

The thought of making a movie in which the monsters were the good guys was just financial suicide.

But if there is a just God, there is ultimate justice.

As a literature of change driven by technology, science fiction presents religion to a part of the reading public that probably seldom goes to church.

When I was a youngster, I wrote all this music - it just came out of me - and I think record executives were like, 'Oh, wow, he's a genius, let's give him a million dollars!' But the minute I started producing the records, they'd be like, 'Oh, my God, you're terrible! You're all over the place! We can't market this!'

We don't pray for the land. We pray for the humans, all humans... starting with the president, Mohammed Morsi, and all officials, and for God to give everyone wisdom and responsibility to manage the affairs of this country and its people in true Egyptian spirit.