Ninety percent of the time, you're going to hear no. It took me seven years to make 'Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored.' Nobody wanted to see the movie made. I got the movie made.

The name of the game is efficiency; we have to play that game with our toys and our brains.

How did we suddenly become entranced with gangster culture? I saw it this morning on campus. When did the black community say we should all look like criminals?

When the media defines something, you have to question: Is it the definition that you want applied to your culture? I'm trying to determine who's leaving the legacy, and if the legacy that is being left is a positive one.

What helped me get the part was that I turned it down. When I read the script, Venus was just a black guy who came in wearing a big coat and a hat and making jive talk. I'd been up for so many of those! I'd had enough of caricatures, what white writers conceive blacks to be. I told the producer I wasn't interested in doing anything like that for three or four years. He said that it was just a pilot, that Venus would be given a human dimension and would be quiet off-the-air. I wanted that input. I thought that side was as important as the comic side. For 'WKRP,' too much of either would be bad.

The business is so upside down now. It's not just about the bling-bling.

Just having hope ain't going to cut it. You've got to have hope, passion and skills.