Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson ONZ KNZMis a New Zealand filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known as the director, writer and producer of The Lord of the Rings trilogyand The Hobbit trilogy, both of which are adapted from the novels of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien. Other notable films include the critically lauded drama Heavenly Creatures, the mockumentary Forgotten Silver, the horror comedy The Frighteners, the epic monster remake film King Kongand the supernatural drama film The...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth31 October 1961
CityPukerua Bay, New Zealand
The industry has to have the audience in order to make these films. So it's a serious thing - how do you get people to leave their houses and go to the theater?
People sort of accuse Tolkien of not being good with female characters, and I think that Eowyn actually proves that to be wrong to some degree. Eowyn is actually a strong female character, and she's a surprisingly modern character, considering who Tolkien actually was sort of a stuffy English professor in the 1930s and '40s.
People regard CGI as a gimmick; they almost blame CGI for a bad story or a bad script. They talk about CGI as if it's responsible for a drop in standards.
If I'm lucky enough to be involved in the Academy Awards in the future, I'll just let people make up their decision without being involved in any politics. Because it shouldn't involve that.
I have a freedom that's incredibly valuable. Obviously my freedom is far smaller in scale than people like Zemeckis and Spielberg have here. But it's comparable. I can dream up a project, develop it, make it, control it, release it.
Every time you do something, people are going to like it, people are going to hate it. You tend to make the movies on the basis you are making them for the people who are going to like them and not worrying too much about people who don't like them.
Once the film is out and a lot of people are seeing it, it becomes almost owned by the cinemagoers of the world.
I always have had a slightly jaundiced view about people who promote books about themselves.
'Heavenly Creatures' was really the idea of Fran Walsh. It was a very famous New Zealand murder case, but not one that people knew much about.
For me, utter failure is to make a film that people pay their money to go see and they don't like.
As a filmmaker, you want nothing more than to have people say, 'I love your movie.'
The entertainment options for young people are a lot broader now, and the quality of films is slumping a little bit.
I didn't want people to sit there and watch 10 minutes of film,and all they write about is 48 frames.
We used a lot of computer technology, and I think New York looks pretty convincing. I think most people will think we got in a time machine and somehow shot it in New York in '33.