Quotes from Antoine Fuqua

Bruce Willis. Pain in my ass, no problem about that. We just didn't get along. We got along off camera, but shooting we just didn't get along.

The world we live in is like a Benetton ad. It's changed, and we have to appeal to a broader audience. You want younger kids of every race to be able to see themselves in the movie.

So it's hard to be an artist and be true to the reality of the world you want to create and also make it entertaining and successful financially.

What's it like finding out Denzel Washington wants you to direct his next movie? It's like getting a phone call from Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan saying they want you to coach them.

When you're a director, and you look at Scorsese's work, he's always challenging us to push the envelope and break the rules. Someone like that is necessary and a godsend.

I grew up on the East Coast, and we always used to say, 'Go get your hustle on, ' whether it was playing sports or making money. You do what you have to do to do what you want to do.

I believe in God, absolutely.

We're very good friends, we have a very honest relationship. He keeps me honest, I keep him honest. He's an incredible actor and when you have an actor like Denzel action becomes drama.

I watched the 'Seven Samurai' a lot because I loved it growing up. I can't describe to you how powerful that was. When you're a kid, you can't watch an almost-three-hour movie, but this was a war I just never saw before, with these samurai. I could relate to it, just being poor.

I grew up watching 'Rocky.' I still love that movie, the original one.

When I was younger, growing up in Pittsburgh, they had a 'Golden Gloves' program through the Boys and Girls Club. In Pittsburgh, New York, Philly, Washington, those areas, I would go and spar at competitions.

I grew up an athlete, growing up in Pittsburgh. I played basketball. I played football. I played a little bit of baseball in my earlier years.

I was a fan of baseball growing up. We played baseball; I used to play in an A&P parking lot. It wasn't always easy to find a good baseball field to play in.

If you are wearing the right jersey, people rallying in around you, and hugging each other when you win, and there's so much love and excitement when you're together. And then people seem to walk away, take their jerseys off, and start focusing on the color of your skin. It didn't matter for that couple hours at the game - why does it matter now?

I think that the dialogue between police officers and the black community has to get better, but not better in a way where, 'Oh, let's talk about it when something horrible happens.' The dialogue has to be going on consistently, every day.

My grandmother was a huge western fan. She'd have me watch with her. 'Shane,' 'Bonanza,' 'Duel in the Sun,' I saw them all with her. I used to watch them until the TV turned to snow.

Each time you see a Western movie, it's a good reflection of where things are in the world at that time. It's probably one of the purest forms of cinema that really tells you where the world is.

I don't understand why we give up genres, and the Western is a great genre. It's a part of the rich history of cinema and who we are as we've evolved as people, as a community.

You don't just have to see superhero movies. Ultimately, those movies are westerns - superheroes are good guys fighting bad guys in a landscape. In westerns, that divide couldn't be any more clear, but the only superpower you have is that you're a quicker shot than the other guy.

Westerns are simple stories where there's good and there's evil and where people had a sense of space and freedom. Growing up in the city, as a kid, you've never really seen that before. It's a beautiful dream to go from concrete to big skies, dirt and horses.

When you're sitting ringside, there's a primal thing there that hooks into violence and excitement. It's just two guys going at it in the ring - there's no team, no one to pass the ball to - and there's a certain excitement to that.

The challenge for a director - and I think a lot of directors feel the same way - is that today we have to put on a producer's hat, too. Meaning, you have to sometimes think of it being 'business show,' not just 'show business.'

I don't know, you know, when I look at it now, I don't know what in the world made me think I could become a director. I really don't.

It's a dumb question, because I don't look at things as a black director, just as a director, so ask me as a director first and we can segue into the colour thing later.