I like to go to parties where I know everyone. How are you going to have fun with people you don't know?
I grew up in a rough environment. You want to be strong and have your presence felt out there. That attitude reflects how people see you.
My favorite song is Eminem's 'Rap God. ' That joint is just incredible, It's six-and-a-half minutes of him just crushing the whole game. It's so different from what I hear if I listen to the radio.
Being producer you're still going to have to sell somebody who's going to give you the money on the idea and everything like that. But it does give you a little bit more control if you're thinking in that creative process; it gives you more control to tell the story you want to tell rather than sort of just reading a script that somebody else wrote and says, "Yes, please, you can hire me for this job. " So it's a little bit more hands-on, a little bit more closer to the heart.
The beauty of when you watch good television or films is that, yes, you may have a multi-cultural cast but those roles could be anybody - they could be white, they could be black. To show the world that we have more in common than we have different with each other is to me the ultimate goal of all of that. It does help unite in people's mind the thought that people are the same. Yes, there's going to be cultural differences, but for the most part, we are all in the same gang as human beings.
I want to see my family prosper, see my kids grow old. I would love to keep having a really solid, strong career and just being happy. My life isn't just this business, so there's so many other things that I like to do. I just want to be able to have the freedom to do all of the things that I want to do.
I think that there's room to grow, as far as being a person of color in film. I went to the theater the other day, and there's a whole bunch of Valentine's Day movies coming out. And the only ones that you see a lot of us in are us goofing off and clowning around; it's this kind of pseudo-romantic comedy kind of thing.
I believe this all has to do with how I decide to perceive the experience. Pain is part of life and makes you who you are meant to be. I just let it flow through me, at whatever rate it decides to do so. Then I go to the hockey rink and hit a few slap shots.
It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.
I prefer the smaller budget versus the bigger budget because the mentality that goes along with big budget filmmaking doesn't really suit me; the mind-set that money is the answer.
Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.