Antoine Fuqua Quotes

I do think the moral line you walk all the time about putting something in for the sake of the film and not being affected by people's lives is a very tough one.

I'll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who's in the entertainment industry does to some extent.

What a terrible world it would be if we only did films that were poster boards for political causes.

I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.

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.

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.

You can't be trying to make a film that pleases all people, you know, so it's not a concern of mine.

I don't think any studio - it was a long shot at the time - but I don't think any studio in a million years would make 'Thelma and Louise' right now. But there's so many other kinds of movies they won't make right now.

There were times in my career I went a little further than I wanted because of expectations. Doing certain things onstage when children were in the audience, wearing certain clothes, singing certain lyrics.

I never set out to make a movie that was everything to everybody; if that were the case, we could all just take a picture of a tree and agree that the tree is beautiful and move on with our lives. I wouldn't even need to show up.

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.

Politics is politics; art is art. If you play a political role, you have to stop being an artist.

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

There came a point in time when Michael was under a great deal of pressure to alter the film in a way that was just disturbing to him. I had not seen the movie, yet. He phoned me in July of '92 to look at his version.

If you find yourself in a movie that you have questions about, it's not a compromise to your integrity.

There's an eternal war between a creative person and the business person.

When I'm writing for other people, I have to play it safe.

The second you feel a political imperative, it destroys your art.

There will always be some films that the audience would like and some that they don't. But if I start becoming a slave to appreciation, I will be subjecting myself and my talent to one particular type of taste. I don't want to do that.

Commercial theater, in its agenda to appeal to everybody, is often at the expense of the unique vision of the artist.

I would never make a film because I think it's going to be a box-office success.

We may not be proud of every song we've ever done - or been forced to do - but I believe we've done more than meets the eye.

Self-censorship is the most devastating thing for an artist.

My faith sometimes burdens me with the responsibility to think very deeply and long and hard about the choices I make creatively. There are projects I turn down because the material is too much a violation of what I believe. But that's true of anybody.

When you're working in service to a big project, there's always the question of, 'Is there total freedom to do what I think is right artistically, or is this a job?' It's okay for things to be a job. I'm perfectly comfortable working. I don't need to sit around and quench whatever personal artistic thirst I have at all times.