You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?

In places in the world where we don't speak the same language, or even understand that we pray to the same God, we dance to the same beat, that is the ONE.

Michael Ralph brilliantly plays the street prophet, a West Indian who foreshadows the Harlem riot.

It's kind of dangerous to cut in the camera, but that's the only way I know how to direct.

If you just change one person's life, you feel like you've done something. But if you can change a whole lot of them and get them looking at themselves differently, it's amazing.

I design my shots. I walk the rehearsal as the camera and say 'this is where I want to be... I want this look.

I didn't need the insurance. I do it again if my DP tells me it didn't look good in the camera or if the actors didn't hit their marks. But if everything was working why do it again?