Quotes from Gina Prince-Bythewood

With 'Love And Basketball,' every studio turned it down.

There is a perception within our community and the world that black people don't love each other. That we don't fight for each other. That perception is so dangerous. We need positive images to counter the negative portrayals we see every day. And positive doesn't mean perfect. Perfect is boring.

There's a great deal of women in film school. I was not the only woman in my class at UCLA. When I went through the Sundance program, it was half women and half men.

Talent has no gender. People are hiring young male directors right out of film school, off of a student film or off of a film at Sundance for millions of dollars. You can do the same with a female. It's not a risk about the work if you respect the film that they made.

Movies have power. Power to impact society and the choices we make. I want to entertain, but I also want to say something to the world.

I grew up with white parents, and until after college, it was a lot of confusion, especially because I grew up in an all-white area. So I never looked around and saw anyone who looked like me.

There are a lot of aspects of filmmaking that I love, but one of my favorites is in post, finding the right song for the right moment.

I was adopted by two amazing people: a Salvadoran mother and a white father who were incredibly supportive of me and my work. I am eternally grateful for them.

On my set, people have to respect the actor's process. I totally respect what actors do. I give them whatever time they need, and I never scream out directions from the camera. I take the time to walk up to them and talk to them personally.

My husband and I are writers, and I wish I could write faster. There are not a lot of movies made with black actors in mind.

'Black film,' that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, 'We've made our black film. We've made our film with people of color in it,' as opposed to, 'I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.'

I hate to fly. I'm deathly afraid of it.

I love writing and directing because it's great therapy. Every project I've done, there's been a personal connection.

I don't want people to go to a film of mine because they feel guilty, like, 'I have to support it because there's black folks in there.' I want them to go because it's a good movie.

I remember sitting in the theater watching 'Bridesmaids,' and I'm doubled over laughing, and then I'm crying in the same movie. It's the overwhelming feeling, as I'm looking up and seeing these women, and I'm realizing how rare it is to see that.

When 'The Cosby Show' came out, and everyone was up in arms about 'The Cosby Show' and that it was reflecting a world that didn't exist - but I knew black doctors. And I knew black lawyers. And I knew families that, you know, had a mother and a father and kids that were well-behaved.

There are so many romantic comedies made, but very few dramas or love stories. And with a love story, you have to take time to develop three-dimensional characters.

I was adopted by a Salvadorian mother and a white father. Growing up having complete identity crisis. Then my search for my mother and trying to find out why I was given up, and how could a mother give up a child, then finding out the circumstances of my birth was pretty traumatizing.

Improv is a very big thing for me. The thing with actors is I do not understand at all how they do what they do. I'm fascinated by it, and I have such a respect for it.

Everything I've written has been personal and touched on things that I needed to deal with in my personal life. So I just feel that writing is great therapy, and the best writing comes from truth, and so I mine my life constantly for that.

With 'Love & Basketball,' I played ball my whole life and did track at UCLA. So, I'm an athlete. And it was very important for me to get it right. I started with casting: As an athlete, there's nothing worse for me than watching a sports movie and the woman that they hire can't run or can't shoot. It sets women's sports back years.

I want us to have it all, love and career. It's a struggle sometime to achieve that, but I love the struggle.

Some of my favorite films are musicals, like 'Walk the Line,' 'The Rose' and 'Lady Sings the Blues.' I just love the way the music and the story fuel each other.

'Beyond the Lights' was my fourth film. I gained a lot of knowledge, and I'm excited to share that with young filmmakers because I know how lost I was coming out of film school with that question of 'What's next?'