Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.

I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker; I just didn't have the resources to do that.

I have never been in a violent movie or television show.

Many people are afraid to talk about race because it's so emotionally loaded. We don't have the vocabulary to talk about it. Every day, our vocabulary seems more and more inadequate.

I mean, I think a healthy country is a country where people are healthy physically, and a smart country is a country where people are educated.

When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country.

I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.