If I'm doing my job right, then I'm not writing the dialogue; the characters are saying the dialogue, and I'm just jotting it down.

You can do all these kinds of things that are up close and personal, but you really have to bring your strength, and really - you have to really be committed to actually strangle the life out of somebody, to crush their larynx and just squeeze every drop of life out of them.

You're not going to have the police force representing the black and brown community, if they've spent the last 30 years busting every son and daughter and father and mother for every piddling drug offense that they've ever done, thus creating a mistrust in the community. But at the same time, you should be able to talk about abuses of power, and you should be able to talk about police brutality and what, in some cases, is as far as I'm concerned, outright murder and outright loss of justice without the police organization targeting you in the way that they have done me.

If there is something magic about the collaborations I have with actors it's because I put the character first.

If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions.

I want do a Mandarin language movie. It'll probably be the next movie I do after the one I do next.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do, but when you try to deal with prescient themes in the present, that is what you're doing.