Ice T Quotes

You see I don't like to be really too commercial about things but in this business you've just got to be commercial otherwise the films don't make money and you don't make films and as a long as a commodity is selling it's silly to kill it dead.

Above all, film is a business... Independence is a really cool thing as you can be a bit more bold, and take a few more chances with what you do.

It's nice to stretch in different directions and use different muscles. You can get swallowed into Hollywood, where it's all about bums on seats and how commercial a film is.

Once you make a studio 700 million dollars or so, or whatever the insane number is, then they finally seem to trust you, no matter how off-the-wall your project is.

I feel 100% sure that I have the career that I have today because of independent filmmaking.

You've got these big studio films and these tiny independent films now. It's very much either/or. With the independent films, it's always a beautiful risk - it might never be seen. With the studio films, you're conforming to the formula of what's always been in place.

I like working with different directors; it keeps you on your toes.

If you are handed something, it's a blessing and a curse. Look at hip hop artists, they produced everything themselves. Even people like Robert De Niro are getting into production. Again, it's art vs. marketing. Not everyone can take the risk. You have to break a few eggs to make a good omelet.

It's not easy to make films that one wants to because it is not easy to find a producer that fast for the subjects I want to make. They are not hot cakes in the market.

The reach of big-budget films is bigger, but I have always loved doing films that I believe in.

If you want your company to succeed, you have to have the confidence in your business to take a bet on its future - to risk destroying a mediocre business model for the chance to have a strong one.

You go real long in this business, and then you have these light-bulb moments. I just had this fleeting moment of fearlessness and a moment of trust in myself that I'm not going to listen to anyone. I'm going to do it how I want to do it. And how I want to do is what people are going to want to see and promoters want to pay for.

You want the film to be critically successful - you certainly want the film to be financially successful so that you can...well, because that's how movies like this are made, you know, they need to make money. But as a director, you can only make the movie that you want to make.

I don't believe the writer should know too much where he's going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint—old man propaganda.

I'm very aware, but I'm very naïve. When you are really naïve and expecting safety and expecting the best, you don't feel you're taking risks. You can get smacked a little, but usually it works out pretty well. I would say that, as much as you can instill your open-minded naivety, if you're basically open minded, then you can do damn near anything.

What is an entrepreneur? Someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down.

I will not allow anyone to take anything off my palette but if I do then within that, I can be creative.

I do a lot of weird movies that maybe you don't like and I experiment a lot but maybe I do appreciate the process and I think my greatest joy in this business is that I have had the ability to screw up in a lot of really interesting films!

There's something different about an indie film than a TV show that has a huge infrastructure that's in place already for you - at least financially and in terms of distribution. Whereas an indie film is just a total dare.

I never want to feel like the way that I see it isthe only way. Sometimes mistakes happen and that's better than whatyou thought the scene could be. You allow room for the possibilities.

I wouldn't be doing motherfu**ing films for almost three decades if every time I did something that someone didn't like I went in a fu**ing cocoon and just hid there and didn't make my art.

The great enemy of creativity is fear. When we're fearful, we freeze up - like a nine-year-old who won't draw pictures, for fear everybody will laugh. Creativity has a lot to do with a willingness to take risks. Think about how children play. They run around the playground, they trip, they fall, they get up and run some more. They believe everything will be all right. They feel capable; they let go. Good businesspeople behave in a similar way: they lose $15 million, gain $20 million, lose $30 million and earn it back. If that isn't playing, I don't know what is!

Those who are going to be in business tomorrow are those who understand that the future, as always, belongs to the brave.

Ultimately I want to be able to create whatever I want whenever I want. And if that doesn't work, I don't mind just doing weird plays.

I'm actually in a funny place now where I'm more secure than I've ever been. My career is more stable than it's ever been and that's nice, but it's put this thought in my mind where I'm like, "I have more to lose now." I still have to remind myself that I can't be quiet and back away from the things that have got me here, which is kind of doing it my way and not necessarily caring what the consequences are. A lot of that comes back to music.