When a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie. " You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film. " You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares.
I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I. '