MARK WATERS: Yeah, that was the big can of worms in that I got hired because I'd just finished Mean Girls for the studio, and they said, 'We know you can really make this family dynamic and these relationships with these teenagers very real and really funny and authentic, but we want to have you take that and play it out on a wider canvas where this very realistic American family gets caught up in a big, fantastical adventure. And so the thing is, I would just say to myself and say to our team, 'I want to see this. I want this to happen.' And then thankfully we got people like Kathleen Kennedy, who came on to the movie, and brought the people from ILM and Tippet Studio and Michael Kahn, who was my editor, and people who actually know how to do these things. So I couldn't technically tell you how to do it, at least before we started, [but] now I can. Before we started I was like, all I can say is I really would like for there to be a troll who comes crashing down from here and then turns and runs and chases them. And they would go, 'Okay, let's sit down and draw it and do a pre-visualization sequence, and then we'll refine that and then we're going to tell you how to achieve that on screen.' And that was the great luxury of this movie -- working with that level of talent who actually knew how to basically actuate just about anything I could possibly imagine.

Q: As a director, don't you have to talk all the actors through what's happening? Is this the first time you've had to do that?

MARK WATERS: Oh, yes. And the good thing is, I'm kind of a ham anyway. So I would often be playing all of the creatures and the goblins and I had a microphone and I set up loudspeakers around the set and I would be doing the voice of Mulgarath and then roaring and trying to scare them. I found whenever I could get them to jump it was always good for their performances. And also we did things where we created life-size maquettes of all the characters, including a big cardboard one for Mulgarath, it was like 10 feet tall. So they would do the rehearsals and the first take actually acting with guys holding goblins on sticks chasing after them. So you get the sense of okay, that's how big it is and that's it reaching out for me and it helped make it a little more tangible and real than just acting opposite air.

Q: With a strong comedy background like yours, is it difficult to get across the point to producers that you can do more, you can move into other areas? Can directors be stereotyped like that?

MARK WATERS: Oh, absolutely. The interesting thing is that I always get these comments from, like, my sister going, 'Oh, man. I just read this great John Grissom book and you should direct it.' I'm like, 'I'm not going to get the courtroom thriller. That doesn't get sent my way.' It's like, 'What do you mean? You're a big director.' In a way, I'm attracted to all sorts of different material and I'll have very eccentric taste, yet at the same time it is true that generally people aren't going to want to take a chance on you for things they haven't seen you do before. If anything, one of the interesting things about this movie was just maintaining that sense of urgency and stakes and intensity throughout the entire movie, and never letting anyone have a break from it. Usually, like on Mean Girls, the task that Tina Fey and I set for ourselves was we wanted to maintain a comic intensity throughout the movie, where people just don't really get a break from laughing. And if they do, it's for a brief emotional scene and then we're going to once again try to knock them on their heels again with comedy. And in this movie, it was kind of like, oh no, we're going to do the same thing, only with action and peril and excitement. And one thing about his movie that really, I think--besides the kind of modern American-ness of it--is really different from all fantasy films, is that the movie's 90 minutes long. It's from the end of the end credits, which are the longest end credits in history, it's 95 minutes. But basically, the action of the movie takes place in under 90 minutes and yet it's telling five books in the story and it had a relentlessness to it that a lot of the two-hour-and-45-minute, three-hour-and-45-minute fantasy films do not. And I hope that's something that will also make it good for a younger viewer to be able to pay attention.

Q: You have an American family and you wanted an American aesthetic, so why did you hire two British kids as the leads?

MARK WATERS: The best of the best. Frankly, despite the people who are in the industry, my mother couldn't tell you whether Freddie is from South Bend or South Galway. And that's the thing, as long as they're believably able to convey the parts, you might as well go with the best actor. But it was an ironic twist. And then we couldn't help ourselves and just had to hire Joan Plowright as well.

Q: How amenable was she to this project?

MARK WATERS: Oh, she loved it. Admittedly, it was kind of like, she loved the idea of, [in British voice] 'So where is the goblin? Coming through the window there? Throw the salt? Okay.' It was very fun.

Q: Are you hoping for a sequel?

MARK WATERS: Yeah, well you should definitely talk to Tony and Holly more about that when you see them. But this was the first five books of the first series, and they're actually in the middle of the second series. The first has come out, the second book's coming out later this year. It's planned as a trilogy. And that new series is going to be really, really exciting as well. Jared Grace's character is involved in it. It's a brand new family, but he gets called in as like the Han Solo, fairy badass, who knows how to handle these affairs.

Q: Have you decided on your next project after this?

MARK WATERS: Yeah, I start shooting in a week. I've more than decided. I'm going to Boston after I leave you guys to start shooting a movie called The Ghost of Girlfriends Past with Matthew McConaughey and Michael Douglas. It's going to be a romantic comedy takeoff on A Christmas Carol. A guy who's broken a lot of hearts over the years and is the love miser, he basically gets visited by the ghosts of girlfriends past, present and future. And Michael Douglas is like the Marley character. He's a playboy from the '70s who's his uncle Wayne, who's dead and kind of is mentoring him through learning to be nicer to women.

Q: Is this a Christmas release?

MARK WATERS: Yeah, either that or we're kind of making an anti-Christmas movie. Like, it happens on January 3, and they're taking down all the Christmas decorations. It might come out, actually, literally the same weekend as Fool's Gold, only next year. Or it'll be Christmas.

Q: Can you talk about making a film when the writers' strike is still going on? Are you hoping it'll be over so you can make little tweaks, or are you happy with the way the script is?

MARK WATERS: Thankfully, I'm happy with the script. I mean, the script is in great shape. And me and the stars and the studio are all really psyched about it. But believe me, it would be great if my writers could be coming on the set with me. When Tina Fey was on the set of Mean Girls, it was one of the nicest experiences of my life to be like, 'This scene's not quite working. Why can't we change this line a little bit?' And that kind of luxury I'm not going to have unless the strike resolves, so hopefully it will.

“The Spiderwick Chronicles ” opens in theaters on February 14^th.

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