My grandfather was the first feminist in my life. He taught me if a woman can do something, a man will respect her.

Out of necessity comes genius.

I'm in film school, so I really have to sock away my money for school, tuition, and so on, and I really don't have time.

Yes, you can have art films about the triumph of the human spirit and all of that, but you'll have it done with a big-budget icon with a $20 million salary. You'll have Julia Roberts, you'll have Robert Redford, you'll have Russell Crowe doing those films, because if they're going to cost $90 million, they're going to make that movie for a public that's very large and mainstream. They're not going to make it for three or four million black people.

Anything involving the camera, you're passionate about. Because there's no movies without it.

I don't know how I did it, but I worked 7 days a week.

The African-American community is not monolithic. It's liberal and conservative.