Movie director Chris Weitz: "Animals never do what you want them to"

From Terry Gross' Fresh Air interview with director Chris Weitz ("A Better Life") as broadcast on June 22, 2011. Weitz discusses why he used computer-generated wolves in his movie "New Moon," part of the "Twilight" series:

GROSS: And one more thing about "New Moon." There are werewolves in it. The main werewolf is played by Taylor Lautner, but then there's, like, when they're actually the wolves, are those, like special-effect wolves? Are those, like, computer-generated graphic wolves or...?

Mr. WEITZ: Yes.

GROSS: So you didn't have to worry about directing large, unusual animals?

Mr. WEITZ: No, it's - we - it's best not to deal with animals because they never do what you want them to do.... In "The Golden Compass," we had mostly CGI animals, but I thought it would be very clever of me if the people who had gone through the sort of process to separate themselves from their spirit demons, with those people, we used actual animals.

And then I learned the joy of working with actual animals, especially multiple animals, which is that half of the time, they're looking for food or copulating.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WEITZ: And that wasted a lot of takes.