Obviously it was an out of body experience to win an Academy Award.

The musicians are good and their music is catchy - it pulls the kids in in droves. Mike Bickle admitted to me that the music was a big part of their success at attracting young people.

Symbolic racism is hurtful and it is especially hurtful to Black children who get called Black Pete in school and grow up with the sense that they are inferior to white kids.

I didn't have a lot of exposure to films as a kid, and I never went to the cinema. I had a single mom who just planted me in front of the television.

Owen [Suskind], in a sense, grew up on a diet of myth and fable, and has become an expert on their themes, which contain a moral guide that connects people.

I've known Owen's father Ron [Suskind] for years, and this was based on his best-selling book ["Life, Animated"]. We worked together as journalists at ABC-TV News, and I knew about the book since its inception. Before he finished it, he approached me and said he thought it would make a great documentary, and I agree with him, and moved forward from there.

I don't think we're getting the empathy, and identifying with the situations that many African Americans experience. That's the problem with how the story is being reported.