Julie Taymor: Being on that edge, where you have to see where you’re going and you have to be careful, ‘cause the wind is tossing and turning you, it’s still the most exciting place to be. You can fall, and I have, or other people can push you, and they have. But at the same time, if you know what moves you — and for me it’s never been money. I’m very lucky that The Lion King is successful. If it wasn’t, I’d be as poor as — I would be, because the projects that I wanted to do are still on the edge. I’ve been offered some normal stuff. I’m not really interested.
You see, Spiderman, for me, was thrilling. I wasn’t doing Spiderman because it was, as I said, vulgar or comic — Marvel. I actually went and was so knocked out by the source of that material, that I believed that we could pull off the source, which is the original story of Arachne. And the whole story of Arachne is about hubris, and that’s why Peter Parker is who he is. And I feel that it’s sad that people couldn’t allow that to fruition. Many people loved it, but we didn’t get to finish. That’s what people don’t know. It was shot down before — it was almost there when it was closed. And actually, everybody knew that, too, and it was doing well. But they’d already made the decision. So I would say that — I’m not trying to brag about being on the edge. I’m saying it’s not always a great place to be, but it is a place that I would rather live than on flat, boring ground.