Quotes from Antoine Fuqua

Anyone who's done their homework knows that the West was a pretty rough-and-tumble place. People from all over the world were there - and when you were there, you had to be tough as nails.

My responsibility is, I'm always trying to look for new people of color or even artistic people who need a chance.

If Prince decided that he liked you, or he liked your art or what you brought to the table, it wasn't something that ended. It was a continuation of that thing until he went to the next thing.

If you want to be in Hollywood, and if you want to make big international movies, you have to be able to make movies that don't have anything to do with social status or politics. To limit yourself to just do these little small movies and call it black cinema itself is a mistake to me.

Denzel's all about the work. He's all about the acting. He's an actor. He'll tell you himself, 'I'm not a movie star, celebrity, something else. I'm an actor.' He steps on a set, that's what he is, and that's what he gives you. He gives his heart.

I used to get off the bus, and there'd be a crowd around, you know, and I was thinking, 'God, I hope this is not for me.' And it normally was, and it was because someone said something to my sister, and the first she says is, 'Well, I'll get my brother.'

Some men don't gel when it comes to work - you have different work ethics, different opinions, different points of views, different methods of filmmaking - and we didn't gel.

I've become friends with Michael Mann and Oliver Stone; I've seen those guys work and that was great to see.

I like the platform to show your art and everything that goes along with that. To show your voice and hopefully find films that are more politically driven, films that maybe inspire.

We talk about how hard it is now. But if we look back at the '60s, we actually had a president that was assassinated. We had riots, we had Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the FBI, and the Black Panther war. There was so much happening at the time where it felt like America was coming apart at the seams.

'Cause movies are human drama, that's it.

Making a movie to entertain people, that's just as important as telling people about our stories.

I like making movies.