I always think it's not what we know that's terrifying; it's what we don't know. That's sort of pervasive with everything in life.

[Black people] come into the world exactly like you. It's just that there are circumstances in the culture that are dictated and put on our lives that we have to fight against.

In fact, someone was telling me that Gladiator was the one film where Ridley Scott didn't take a producer's credit. And it won. But this guy changed the industry twice; with Aliens which was a whole new way of looking at things and Blade Runner that was also a whole new way of looking at things.

[Fences] is just a great play to bring to the screen.

You don't pick black actors or black directors because they are black. You pick them because they are good. If you lend somebody 50 million dollars you want you're money back. You don't care if they are oppressed. You just want you're money back.

It's very important to transcend places that hold us.

I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you're prepared for it.