Colin Firth Quotes

People often ask me if I feel discriminated against as a black female director. I don't. I'm actually offered a ton of stuff. But I only want to direct what I write. And I prefer to focus on black female characters. What's most important to me is to put characters up onscreen who are not perfect, but who are human and flawed.

I'm not going to be labeled a black filmmaker. I am not here to just tell black stories. I'm here to tell all kinds of stories, musicals and dramas.

It's really important to me not to be a snob about age division or about genre or whatever. The story needs to be what the story needs to be.

The people who used to hold the purse strings were a select group of white, middle-aged men, but that's changing, and the more it continues to change, the more we'll see inclusive stories get told.

Creatively, I just like interesting characters. So straight, gay, or whatever - like, whatever, wherever the characters are coming from or their lifestyle.

I'm not saying that we need more stories about people of a certain age, we just need more great stories about people.

I feel like the world is dominated by such a small group of human beings. There are so many different kinds of people that aren't represented, that don't have characters who look like them. And that's one of the reasons why I intend on being a director, because I want to actually tell some of these stories. I also think that we place such intense emphasis on award shows when they're not necessarily the best reflection of how good the work is. We need to realize that art and creation are so much bigger than an award or any measure of accomplishment.

In television, we are fortunate because we get to try a lot of things; we get to take a lot of shots. It gives us a great opportunity to tell many different stories from diverse points of view.

Black writers seldom get the opportunity to write superhero stories.

When my daughter was born, I was reading a lot of children's books, and there weren't any characters who looked like her. For all the content that's out there, there aren't many African-American protagonists. I looked at it like, if there isn't someone else creating it then I have to do it myself.

I think that sometimes we put undue pressure on stories featuring people of color, and I hope we get to a point where it's not such a rarity to see a person of color be the hero of a story, so that it can just be a story and not have to carry so much weight.

'13 Reasons Why' includes LGBTQ people and people of color in stories without making it about that. They're just living, breathing, human beings who happen to be different from the white, cis, straight norm.

I never grew up seeing women that looked like me in magazines or on TV and didn't feel like I had a place in the world of fashion. I am honoured to be part of that change.

What if Macauley Culkin were black in 'Home Alone?' Most people would write it differently... but I would write it the same way.

What should be driving the conversation is: What's the story? What's the movie about? Is it a compelling story? And if it is, then you make it regardless of the color of the people behind or in front of the camera.

We're all humans. Any human can tell any human's story. I don't want to have this conversation about black film or white film anymore. I wanna have conversations about film.

My very first story, I was around 5, and I really just wrote myself. When I was 5, I loved myself so much I gave myself a twin named Tomi. Everything started out fine. But then I didn't write another black character until I was 18.

YA does a fantastic job of being socially aware and, at the same time, entertaining.

It's my mission in life to put people on the screen who don't get normally represented.

A good song always has to do with the person representing it - how they're feeling in that moment - but I think my songs don't need to be exclusive in terms of gender or race or that kind of thing.

Media gatekeepers - editors, publishers, film studios and the like - need to begin investing in talent behind the scenes, developing and resourcing marginalized voices to tell their own stories. At the end of the day, it's about the story and what will enable the audience to truly see, understand, and know the life and times of the subject.

I'm not asking for there to be all black writer's rooms or all Asian writer's rooms, or all white - I want them all to be diverse. When it's diverse, you're going to have a completely different dynamic. Everybody feels othered. Nobody feels like they've got the upper hand.

I don't want to protect my characters. I don't do it with Muslims, either. My job is not to make us look perfect. My job is to make us look messy.

Directing is not about gender. Directing is individual to the actual individual. From woman to woman, directing is completely different. It's about giving more than half the population a chance to express themselves, you know what I mean? It doesn't always mean it's going to be more sensitive.

Instead of going to a GLAAD event and standing on a soapbox, I am writing roles that I feel will change the narrative and open doors.