There's the movie you write, there's the movie you shoot and the movie you edit, and often, you find that you're getting the same information out of a scene that you already have and a scene that's actually more powerful, so you have to make the tough decision to take it out.

People return my phone calls now, which is really interesting. I'll tell you what I've learned that's kind of bittersweet. So many doors have opened up. I've met everybody in the business. I'm fortunate people want to work with me.

In the South, we tell stories. We tell stories if you're in a sales position, if you're in a retail position, you lure your customer by telling a story. You just do.

Everybody in the South loves the one closeted homosexual who's married. It's just too funny to not have in a movie about the South. It's an epidemic. You gotta represent!

I met this woman who was a hundred, this housekeeper, a hundred years old. I interviewed her. She just told me about her whole life. She's like, 'I can't read, I can't write; I can tell you who I was working for, and I can tell you the year, but who was president?

It's easy to forget history or give it a cliff notes. The cliff notes of history. But mainly, so much of what happens in 'Eyes on the Prize' happened in Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi isn't really known for any other touchstone to the movement, other than Medgar Evers being killed. There were sit-ins and riots and atrocities.

To write, you have to know how to act and know about directing. To act, you also need to know how to write and direct.