In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Harry Potter (and now Fantastic Beasts) producer David Heyman talks about the films and working in the industry. He is set to receive the David O. Selznick Achievement Award at the 27th annual Producers Guild Awards this weekend.  The Fantastic Beasts related questions may be read below:

Why did you decide to return to the world of Harry Potter?

It was exciting to move on and to embrace new challenges with Gravity and Paddington, but when it finished, there was a not-insignificant sadness because [the Potter films] had been such a big part of my life. Jo Rowling created such an incredibly rich and deeply conceived world. What you read in the books is in some ways just the surface of this world. I’d ask her about the [character Sirius Black’s] family tree because we had to paint it on the wall [for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix], and the book only had two names, and half an hour later I’d receive a family tree going back six generations with 100 people. I’m sure Newt Scamander and his story have been in her mind for many years. We were sitting around wondering what else we could do in this world, and [producer] Lionel Wigram, who is the person I first brought the first [Potter] book to, thought about maybe doing a documentary about Newt. That idea was floated to Jo, and she responded to doing a film about [that character].

Is Beasts designed as a franchise?

We’ve talked about making a couple, but with all these things — and this may be a failing of mine — I don’t look at them as franchises; I look at them as films. We want to make each film as good as we can because if you don’t, you won’t have a second film or a third.

What’s the biggest difference between Fantastic Beasts and the Harry Potter films?

Not having to work children’s hours. (Laughs.) And it’s set in 1920s New York as opposed to the U.K. in the ’90s.

He also answers a question about what he wishes he knew when he first started producing.

It’s something I know but I struggle to do: not take it all personally. On the one hand I think it’s important to take it all personally because you have to fight to the bitter end to make it as good as it can be, but at the same time, as one faces rejection on a daily basis, it can be hard at times.