John Lasseter: What was the path to [directing the Castle of Cagliostro
feature]?

Hayao Miyazaki: It's difficult to explain. A senior colleague of mine came to my
house one night and he said, "I'm supposed to make a movie of Lupin, but it's
not going well and so would you help a little?" And I said, "Well, OK, I can
help." And I sort of casually mentioned that I could help and I ended up
directing it. When I thought about it later, it must've been a trap. And in
four-and-a-half months, I completed [the movie].

JL: Four-and-a-half months!?

HM: I was really, really busy.

And I guess this might be construed as a reference to a certain Lupin Series II
ep.

JL: In your films even your villains are so appealing. Could you talk about, as
you're creating a villain, what you're thinking?

HM: When I start creating a villain, I start liking the villain and so the
villain is not really evil. The Fleischer brothers made Superman, and they have
a scene where there's a steel making iron works right behind the Hollywood
Hills. A bad guy -- the evil character -- who puts so much into creating such a
factory and investing so much is somebody that should be lovable. And villains
actually work harder than the heroes.

Other stuff @ http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=4035