Different people approach the universe in different ways, but they also approach their own expectations in different ways.
Copied to Clipboard
Copied to Clipboard
David Mamet was great to work with. He was everything that I thought he would be as a director. He's incredibly articulate, an easy collaborator. Extraordinarily knowledgeable about film and writing.
Copied to Clipboard
Copied to Clipboard
It's a strange thing, but you get this click in your brain; the wonderful feeling that the entirety of a character is suddenly available and accessible to you.
Copied to Clipboard
Copied to Clipboard
Normally, if you're lucky, the idea of a film you have in your head is more or less what you get back when you see it after the editing and the whole post-production process.
Copied to Clipboard
Copied to Clipboard
The idea of making a film - a film that I had certainly never seen before - about the slave experience was a huge responsibility. It's a project that requires a wider understanding of the geopolitical nature of the slave trade, of historical and modern-day racism.
Copied to Clipboard
Copied to Clipboard
If you're looking at people like Patrice Lumumba, you are looking at people who had a very definite plan, and events overran them.
Copied to Clipboard
Copied to Clipboard
I didn't know anything about '12 Years a Slave.' Not the book, not Solomon Northup, which I was quite shocked by, once I'd read it, that it wasn't a seminal text. I think it deserves to be.
Copied to Clipboard
Copied to Clipboard
Friends at school were always quite shocked that we holidayed in Nigeria, but it was all pretty middle-class, really.
Copied to Clipboard
Copied to Clipboard
From deep in the slave hut is somebody calling over 150 years to all of our experiences and all of our ideas on human respect, and all of our ideas on dignity. And I felt like that's just incredibly powerful.