If you want to be in Hollywood, and if you want to make big international movies, you have to be able to make movies that don't have anything to do with social status or politics. To limit yourself to just do these little small movies and call it black cinema itself is a mistake to me.
Antoine Fuqua
When you're sitting ringside, there's a primal thing there that hooks into violence and excitement. It's just two guys going at it in the ring - there's no team, no one to pass the ball to - and there's a certain excitement to that.
'Cause movies are human drama, that's it.
I'd like to think that the door is always open for just the best actor for the role, you know? Race or gender shouldn't have anything to do with it, unless the character or story is focused on that for some particular reason.
Making a movie to entertain people, that's just as important as telling people about our stories.
Some men don't gel when it comes to work - you have different work ethics, different opinions, different points of views, different methods of filmmaking - and we didn't gel.
I've become friends with Michael Mann and Oliver Stone; I've seen those guys work and that was great to see.
Cinema Paradiso, because it reminds me of why I make movies, the magic of movies, the romance of movies.
My grandmother was a huge western fan. She'd have me watch with her. 'Shane,' 'Bonanza,' 'Duel in the Sun,' I saw them all with her. I used to watch them until the TV turned to snow.
We've been fighting our whole lives to say we're just human beings like everyone else. When we start separating ourselves in our work, that doesn't help the cause. I've heard it for years: 'How do you feel being a black filmmaker?' I'm not a black filmmaker, I'm a filmmaker. I'm a black man, I have black children. But I'm just a filmmaker.
It's not worth it, it's not about money, especially when you're dealing with a culture. It should be about elevating the idea of what we are and who we are as people in the cinema, and that kind of stuff keeps dragging us back down.
Each time you see a Western movie, it's a good reflection of where things are in the world at that time. It's probably one of the purest forms of cinema that really tells you where the world is.
I don't know, you know, when I look at it now, I don't know what in the world made me think I could become a director. I really don't.
I don't know if Prince even really paid attention to time. The moment of creativity is the moment, and you go at that moment.
I think that the dialogue between police officers and the black community has to get better, but not better in a way where, 'Oh, let's talk about it when something horrible happens.' The dialogue has to be going on consistently, every day.
I watched the 'Seven Samurai' a lot because I loved it growing up. I can't describe to you how powerful that was. When you're a kid, you can't watch an almost-three-hour movie, but this was a war I just never saw before, with these samurai. I could relate to it, just being poor.
I became a director just for the love of movies, because of the power of cinema.
I grew up an athlete, growing up in Pittsburgh. I played basketball. I played football. I played a little bit of baseball in my earlier years.
My experience of test screenings is that you don't know what kind of mood people are going to be in, and sometimes the studios accept what Joe Blo says - and this guy could just be a frustrated filmmaker, or not paying attention.
I believe in God, absolutely.
I grew up watching 'Rocky.' I still love that movie, the original one.
I only pay to take my son to the movies, because most of the time I only watch European movies, independent movies, or screen them privately. But I like to go to movies with my son because it's still fun; it reminds me of why I make movies.
At one point, there wasn't a black quarterback in the NFL. When you start winning, then you start seeing more. Jumping up and down and screaming and calling people names is not going to change anything.
If you disagree with the way a colleague did something, call him up, invite him out for a coffee, talk about it. But don't do it publicly.
We talk about how hard it is now. But if we look back at the '60s, we actually had a president that was assassinated. We had riots, we had Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the FBI, and the Black Panther war. There was so much happening at the time where it felt like America was coming apart at the seams.
What's it like finding out Denzel Washington wants you to direct his next movie? It's like getting a phone call from Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan saying they want you to coach them.
I like the platform to show your art and everything that goes along with that. To show your voice and hopefully find films that are more politically driven, films that maybe inspire.
I like the opportunity to make films.
I like making movies.
It's a hard line to walk, man. Cause you know you want to make this movie, you want to make it dark and real, you want to show all this stuff but unfortunately you can't always do that.
So it's hard to be an artist and be true to the reality of the world you want to create and also make it entertaining and successful financially.
Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.
The simple answer is I'd just be a guy trying to feed my family, like everybody else. The complicated answer is, I think I'd be in some sort of military or government world of some sort.
But I like to go to movies with my son because it's still fun; it reminds me of why I make movies.
Bruce Willis. Pain in my ass, no problem about that. We just didn't get along. We got along off camera, but shooting we just didn't get along.
It's a dumb question, because I don't look at things as a black director, just as a director, so ask me as a director first and we can segue into the colour thing later.
I take them seriously but I try not to read them. I take them personally, that's why I don't read them. I think people are lying when they say they don't care, that's not true. I take them personally.
The story is also about the battle between Arthur and the Saxons. The Saxons were destroying everything they came across and Arthur was left when Rome was falling because this movie takes place in 400 A.D.
What I learned is, don't forget who you are, because that's what's going to make you a filmmaker.
I started studying mythology, just on my own. Joseph Campbell, mysticism.
I just think you can't shut your life off to just, you know, one thing. You gotta be open-minded. Explore things. Feed your artist.
Remakes have been done forever. People talk about 'Scarface' and don't even know it was a remake.
The challenge for a director - and I think a lot of directors feel the same way - is that today we have to put on a producer's hat, too. Meaning, you have to sometimes think of it being 'business show,' not just 'show business.'
My responsibility is, I'm always trying to look for new people of color or even artistic people who need a chance.
If you win, if you make money. If you do quality work, then other people of color, whatever color that is, can get in the door.
I grew up on the East Coast, and we always used to say, 'Go get your hustle on,' whether it was playing sports or making money. You do what you have to do to do what you want to do.
Every time I look through the lens with Denzel, I'm like a 12-year-old kid. It's hard for me to look at the monitor because the fun is in watching him.
When I was younger, growing up in Pittsburgh, they had a 'Golden Gloves' program through the Boys and Girls Club. In Pittsburgh, New York, Philly, Washington, those areas, I would go and spar at competitions.
I don't understand why we give up genres, and the Western is a great genre. It's a part of the rich history of cinema and who we are as we've evolved as people, as a community.
It takes all sorts of people to come together to fight tyranny. It's not about one race anymore.
