I gave up the idea of having a career when I was 24. Sounds glamorous, but I've been doing things since then, and part of those adventures was to make films because I realised I was actually quite good at it and I enjoyed it.

I've never looked at film-making as a career. I've looked on film-making as an adventure. When you come down the mountain, you get ready to climb again.

Filmmaking is a great adventure. I'm as excited as a kid to be given tickets to fly suddenly to England, South Africa, America, everywhere. I'm still a 13-year-old kid, flying.

Great actors are people who just meld into the part without calling attention to the fact that they are so-and-so doing this part. They may never become huge stars, but will always, in memory, stay respected actors.

When I was little, I didn't really travel - from the suburbs to Paris was already a journey. I had a foreigner's eye on the city, and I still enjoy that point of view. Then there's the fact that one of the things that touches me most is injustice.

It's amazing how many companies aren't really in tune to the needs of different travelers. There's just so many embarrassing situations that you go through when you travel. You have to have a sense of humor about it and take it in stride. My whole approach is to embrace spontaneity.

My self-publishing adventure led to my work being picked up by a traditional publisher and eventually hitting the bestseller lists. That led to two more bestselling novels.

A hybrid human-robot mission to investigate an asteroid affords a realistic opportunity to demonstrate new technological capabilities for future deep-space travel and to test spacecraft for long-duration spaceflight.