A lot of my directing we do in the rehearsal process. We don't want to start discussing the character motivation and stuff like that on the set, so we do a lot of that stuff beforehand in rehearsal. |
Critics like to build you up, tear you down, and then, if you're lucky, build you up again. |
I ain't Martin Luther King. I don't need a dream. I have a plan. |
I collect names for characters. Names are valuable; they can be your first source of insight into a character. |
I didn't roll out of bed and direct Malcolm X. Whatever you do, go out there and work hard. |
I dislike Condoleezza Rice more than [President] Bush. The thing about it is that she's gotten a free ride from black people. |
I think black people have to be in control of their own image because film is a powerful medium. We can't just sit back and let other people define our existence. |
I wouldn't put anything past the U.S. government when it comes to people of color. There is too much history ... going back to when the U.S. army gave smallpox-infested blankets to Native Americans. |
I'm glad to be here on the day we honor Dr. King, a true giant, and it's our responsibility to teach our children what the man was and how this is not just a day you don't go to school. |
If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism. |
It is really important that young people find something that they want to do and pursue it with passion. I'm very passionate about filmmaking. It's what I love to do. |
One more, we catch De Niro and Scorsese. I hope we catch them, and I hope we pass them. |
Our greatness, our talent has never been the question. It's been a matter of grappling for control over what we do. |
People could not believe, especially the residents of the Ninth Ward, that there wasn't hanky-panky in the flooding. |
People didn't really believe me when I told them that I was going to be a filmmaker, |