I always find it fascinating to ask people, why they've chosen to live their life as an artist? Why be an actor, a singer, an author, a filmmaker? I've heard such inspiring answers to that question.

I think there are a lot of people in this industry that have the ability, that have the position, they have the opportunity, they have the privilege to call the shots and could do it too.

The traditional ways to make a film, the traditional ways to share a film, have all collapsed. There are no gatekeepers, per se, any more, and anything can be done. Truly, I feel that.

When I look in the mirror, I see a woman who is happy.

I make films about Black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a Black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.

I know how to make films and now I'm able to make films with the resources and the tools that match my imagination, and what filmmaker doesn't want to do that? I feel very fortunate to have that. I don't take it for granted.

We [Americans] know Martin Luther King Jr. as a statue. We know him as a holiday. We know him as a speech. We don't know him as a man. Most people don't even know the whole speech, just "I have a dream." They don't know what his speaking voice was like, how he looked at his wife, or that he had four kids.