- I don't have a typical filmmaker background. I didn't grow up with a super eight camera or a video camera. I didn't start cutting movies when I was four or five. I actually didn't really start to get into the research of film until I was much older. I decided I wanted to direct a lot earlier than I started to do the research, which is really strange, but it is the case.
- About directing Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey on The Negotiator]: I could talk a certain way to Ice Cube, Chris Tucker, and Jada Pinkett and Queen Latifah on Set It Off. But when you've got guys who bring up Orson Welles, Shakespeare and Juilliard? Kevin Spacey had directed Albino Alligator, and Sam Jackson is from Morehouse and has been doing plays and films for so long and they were the two hottest guys on the planet after Pulp Fiction and The Usual Suspects. I found myself so ... intimidated. They started to use big words I didn't understand, and I was like, "F*ck, if I open my mouth, I will make a fool of myself." I had this vision of what I wanted to do, but I would get into rehearsals and not say anything for fear of looking stupid.
- "I gave this awful direction once to Jada Pinkett on Set It Off, and I didn't realize it until much later, but it still makes me ashamed and it still makes me cringe. You remember that film, Glory? With Denzel Washington? I walk onto the set and there was this very emotional moment I wanted to achieve on Set It Off. So I brought this Sony Clamshell to the set. You know that scene where Denzel has this one tear in his eye as he is being whipped by Matthew Broderick? I don't know how to articulate it properly, so I point to the Clamshell, this little tiny device and I had recorded that scene with my video camera and turned it on this tiny screen on the Clamshell and I say, "So Jada, I want this moment. This is what I want!" Now, she was either being extremely nice, or maybe she just trusted me enough to think, "He had a bad moment, and I know what he wants." But she didn't say anything. In hindsight, it was one of the absolute low point of my career, in terms of approach. I can think back and laugh now, but it's still uncomfortable to remember.
- I remember I once had a meeting with Michael Jackson, and we started talking about movies. He could break down every single classic film, every great musical, and I'd start talking about 'Scarface.
- I didn't grow up studying Orson Welles. "All the greats, I learned about them after the fact, because I had already started making movies, and I was embarrassed to do interviews where they would bring up these great filmmakers and I wouldn't know any of them.
- I was really practical. I never thought of myself as being an artist until much later in my career. When I got a chance to direct movies, I did it in a way where I thought most people would have made the same choices. 'Of course, it's obvious to put the camera here, and it's obvious to get this kind of performance....' I really did feel like any person, given the same opportunity, would do exactly the same thing. But then you evolve and you grow and it's like, 'fuck, maybe there is something to this.' You don't think of yourself as special, but you start to realize that maybe everybody wouldn't have made those exact same choices. I didn't really understand that until later in life, and then I started to embrace it.
- [about The Fate of the Furious] You laughed in Straight Outta Compton, you laughed in Friday, you can't really escape that in my movies, and I think I added a little bit of that special sauce in this too.
- [about his movie Set It Off] That script and that movie is something that I felt a little more confident about because I was a huge fan of Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita. I felt like you don't get enough of women kicking ass and taking numbers and having a lot of fun in a movie like that. I felt like it was different enough, and the studio [New Line Cinema] didn't force me to keep them all alive at the end, which would have been the Hollywood ending. I was really confident that that movie would stand out because of the subject matter, the leads and the ending. I was really happy with the way that turned out.
- [about his first movie Friday] Can you imagine how nervous I was, not only making a "hood" comedy at the time? I'll put it this way: With the type of pressure that I had with Ice Cube's career in my hands, now, he was the meanest guy in rap at the time, and I'm putting him in a comedy. We just experienced him in Boyz N the Hood, a very serious drama about systematic genocide in the neighborhoods. It was really serious. And then to put him in a hood comedy with his reputation, it was a major gamble we all took. And it was a phenomenon that it worked out. I wish I could say, "Yeah, we had it all planned. We knew that when it dropped, it would start a franchise and everything that goes with the success of it." But to be honest with you, I was nervous. We all took a shot with it; it stuck. And I'm happy about that.
- I've been lucky to work with Chris Tucker and give him his first lead and Queen Latifah and given her first lead and Bernie Mac and all the different actors. It's something you just feel in your heart, it's in your heart and you're willing to fight for it.
- Movies with strong characters are always a draw for me. Characters and story, those are the two most important elements for me to kind of get excited about.
- You're raw when you start off. And I've become hyper-aware of artists who start off pretty good and then they lose it because they get fat and rich and kind of stop giving a shit. I try to make sure I don't fall into the trap of becoming comfortable, and make sure every project I take is an opportunity to learn something.
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