Jeffrey Wright Quotes

I just love movies, so suddenly, you're political about movies, and that's dark. It's just not fun when something you love becomes calculated.

Times change; Hollywood is not the same as it was when I first entered the business. It felt to me like it was starting to narrow down and centralize itself around what would... make money.

Television will always err on the side of making something not quite as classy as it could be.

Elvis died the day he went into the army.

You never make movies for Oscars.

I'm making music that I love and I want to hear. At the same time, things like making money, making crazy money - you gotta find ways to reach to everybody but uplift everybody.

Nowadays you really have to pump out that blockbuster in order to have the luxury of getting a body of work, and that's sad because the work suffers. Today everything is based on money. The older actors, they inspire me.

We have gotten some terrible reviews at times but if we depended on the judgment of the studios or critics, we never would have made more than one movie.

The biggest danger of Hollywood becoming a purely corporate town resides in the creative process.

Today, they're just up there for the money, just packaged and be gone.

Jay-Z is as politically correct as some of the politicians. He's safe. There's points when you're acquiring financing, you make adjustments. He's made those adjustments. It's his choice. For me, it's not a necessity.

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

Nowadays it seems more and more like the 'business' in 'show business' is underlined, and there are campaigns, and it's all part of getting people in to see the movies.

Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly.

It costs a great deal of money to do a musical, and the more money involved, the more big business influences the artform.

The studios have been taken over by marketing people and accountants.

The bar is so low in rap - mediocrity is king!

It's difficult to find a movie that feels true to itself. You feel the hand of Hollywood, the moviemaking by committee, on everything.

Hip-hop don't have no fresh energy, none at all. It's money driven, everybody tryin' to make that cheque, nobody putting art in their albums any more.

Imagine if someone like John Lennon or Bob Marley, Sid Vicious, Picasso, whomever, were doing their work, and some corporation, some CEO, some branding entity was saying to you, 'Well, you can do that, but you've got to remove this aspect of your work.' There would no longer be that purity anymore.

The studio is spending great amounts of money, and they want some insurance they will get money back. They go for the middle of the road, broad in appeal. It's restrictive. It's a constant struggle, but if you give in, you're just making cottage cheese, and that's the end of it.

When the business starts shaping the art, or the delivery of the art, then it's not right.

The way Hollywood works, you're never sure if their first thought is to make a great film and honor the material or just another business property.

You want the story to end when it's supposed to and not be squeezed for somebody's financial gain.

The dichotomy between art and industry is totally dysfunctional in terms of film.