I think growing up in South Africa, and then moving to Canada, I'm just genuinely interested in the difference between the First World and the Third World, immigration, and how the new, globalized world is beginning to operate. All of those things run through my mind a lot.

I think that people who make films and think they're changing the world are sorely mistaken. If that really is your goal, there are far better ways to do it. I'm making politically observant films for audiences.

There's no question that how Johannesburg operates is what made me interested in the idea of wealth discrepancy. 'Elysium' could be a metaphor for just Jo'burg, but it's also a metaphor for the Third World and the First World. And in science fiction, separation of wealth is a really interesting idea to mess with.

I want to make a film that is commercially successful because that means that the larger cinema-going audience around the world like the movie, which is my goal. That's my job, to make films that people respond to.

When I took the entrepreneurship class at Stanford, the first lecture was about an entrepreneur and his personality. They described it as being different than a businessman, who is an overall scientific manager.

The way to be successful in the software world is to come up with breakthrough software, and so whether it's Microsoft Office or Windows, its pushing that forward. New ideas, surprising the marketplace, so good engineering and good business are one in the same.

In this business you break a leg and 150 other people are out of work while production is shut down. It's not like you were an accountant and could still work with your leg in a cast.

Before I was State Treasurer, my Rhode Island business helped create over 1,000 jobs, including here at Nabsys, a biomedical company. As governor, I'll use this as a model for how we create manufacturing jobs.