TK: Amazing. As typical as it is with animation, very few of the cast were in the same place at the same time. The first person cast was Paul Giamatti as Dr. Satan. We went to New York to record him. Did all his work in a day. He was really into the project. Loves Rob. Loved the idea of doing a crazy animated project. He's done animation before, but he loved the idea that it was so off-the-wall and so outrageous and R-rated. He got into it right off the bat. He had a script, but he ad-libbed quite a bit. He brought an amazing performance. He really, really enjoyed it. He was a real pleasure to work with.

A similar thing happened with some of the other casting. Except for Tom Papa who came in -- he was the co-writer of the movie as well -- we did several sessions with him, but nearly everyone else, including Sheri Moon Zombie and Rosario Dawson, did their work in a day and were really into doing this kind of outrageous material.

Rob was very eager to have a very eclectic cast so we went out to his stable of actors that he's worked with on various projects and brought them in.

RD: Was there any executive hesitation to any of the material? Was there something that was too outrageous and had to be left out?

TK: From the beginning everyone understood at the company that the idea was to make an R-rated cult classic, midnight movie type of movie. One of the initial executives Jerry Davis saw the potential for that midnight movie feel.

And then at the earliest stages, from the script, it was real clear that we couldn't do the material without going to an R rating, and it was decided early on that we would make the movie as Rob wanted it and worry about the ratings after.

There is a rumor going around that there is an unrated version of the movie, but that's not true. The cut that has been released for these midnight shows and will be out on DVD is Rob's cut, his director's cut that we submitted to the MPAA for approval and they gave us an R rating with no changes requested. And that had always been the intent to create the movie knowing that it was outrageous and pushing envelopes and that it would fit Rob's vision of what he was after. We knew we were after an R rating.

Suzi X surely uses her sex appeal as a deadly weapon.

One of the things that was difficult about the production was that our company changed hands during the production. Over the five years that it took to make the movie there was quite a bit of changes in the executive ranks and various executives that would come in had different issues with this, that or the other about it, but no one every wavered from the commitment to making an R-rated movie. They understood that was inherent in the material. But there were a variety of reactions. Some people liked it more than others. There were notes sometimes that said could you tone this down or that down, but Rob didn't do it, he said, "I want to do it this way," and to their credit they didn't turn around and say you can't. So it never turned into anything difficult.

RD: What was one of the biggest challenges on the production?

TK: There were many. The hardest one was keeping the project moving forward over the five-year plan.

The immediate challenge was getting Rob reengaged. Because of the path they went down with the original storyboards that he was very unhappy with it, there was point in time that he may not have continued with it. So the first big challenge was to convince Rob that we could make the kind of movie that he wanted to see. Once we got him fully engaged, he led the way though to the end even with all these diversions happening.

The second big challenge was getting the money we needed to make the movie right. Like I said, there were changes in the executive ranks over the years, so that was my challenge to get the money we needed to make the quality movie that the material demanded.