How did you get Michael Jackson to appear in the film?
I really wanted Michael Jackson to be in the first "Men in Black" but for some reason he didn't want to be considered as an alien! Five years later, and 15 weeks into an 18 week shoot, I got a message saying that Michael Jackson wanted to be in "Men in Black II". So we got in touch and I had a lovely conversation with Michael in which he told me he had seen the first "Men in Black" in Paris and had stayed behind when all the other people left the theatre, and sat there and wept. I had to explain to him that it was a comedy. Nevertheless he still agreed to be in it as long as he could wear a black suit, that's all that mattered to him. It was very funny and entirely Michael's idea.
You seem to enjoy using cameos in your films. You yourself appear in the movie as do Will Smith's kids...
Yes, l play the father in the scene when Will and Tommy go back to Tommy's old apartment. It was a big mistake and I hope not to be in the next movie I direct.
Will asked me if his two kids, Trey and Jaden, could be in the movie, so I put them in a scene towards the end where Will, Tommy, and Rosario are in Manhattan. Initially I had the kids standing on a patch of grass, but then I had to make it look like Manhattan so I said to Industrial Light and Magic: "Take these shots of the black kids (they didn't know whose kids they were at the time), the ones standing on the grass, and matt the grass into concrete and make it look like a Manhattan street." When ILM showed me the first iteration of that shot, they not only put the two children on a New York City street but added in two burnt-out cars and they were surrounded by garbage. I said to them, "Why don't you just add some syringes on the ground and an outline of a dead person?" It looked horrific, like they were in Harlem or somewhere. The reason behind their decision was to make the scene more, um, urban.Do you believe in aliens?
I don't believe in aliens living on planets as such but I do believe that there's stuff going on in this room that none of us have any idea about. I don't mean that some of you aren't human or anything, I mean other invisible stuff going on like spirits. We live in the country and occasionally I hear sounds at night, so naturally I send my wife downstairs to check it out whilst I hide in the cupboard. And then my wife will come back and tell me that the heating system has just come on.
Are you definitely directing the adaptation of Daniel Handler's "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events"?
Yes, I hope to. It's based on a series of children's books which are really popular in America right now. It's like an incredibly dark version of Roald Dahl, and something that your kids probably shouldn't read. But nevertheless I love the series and hope to start directing it in January or February next year.
