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" I've been taught through life experience that, like, I'd better open my mouth and quickly define myself in a new space and with new people because, if I don't, I will be defined. "

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" Usually, with 'Star Trek,' you always trust the captain. The captains are always going to pull us through; the captain's always going to win. "

Justin Simien

Captain

Win

Trust

" Daring to make films of any kind and thus invite the possibility of ridicule was an internal battle of mine for many years as I worked on the screenplay for what would become 'Dear White People' beginning at the end of George W. Bush's second term. "

" I think great movies do promote conversation, great movies are honest, and great movies are sometimes polarizing. "

" Shows like 'Empire'... one of the most profound powerful things is that there's a gay male character who is loved. That character is going to save a lot of people's lives. Black families are confronting the idea that a gay black character can be human. "

" '2001: A Space Odyssey' - I'd watched and hated it seven times before it provided the first 'religious experience' I'd ever had watching a film. Finally, I was able to pick up on what the film was transmitting almost entirely through dialogue. "

" I like the movies that embrace the complexity of the human condition. "

" I think I'll always be making movies that intend to say something new. "

" I see racism as institutional: the rules are different for me because I'm black. It's not necessarily someone's specific attitude against me; it's just the fact that I, as a black man, have a much harder time making an art-house movie and getting it released than a white person does about their very white point of view. That's racism. "

" The thing about TV is you kind of have an endless canvas. You can always keep going. "

" I tend to take on too many projects at the same time, but as I've always done, I will continue to shift my focus onto whatever feels most urgent in the moment. "

" Every movie has the thing it's about, and then, deep down, it has this thing that it's really about. 'Star Wars' is not really about a space opera, action, and the galactic quest. It's about self-doubt. "

" I loved Lena Dunham's 'Girls.' "

Justin Simien

Loved

" Self-doubt is a constant companion for a chubby, gay, black boy born in the South. "

" When you're part of a society where you're constantly having to define your identity and sort of negotiate with what the mainstream culture thinks you are, you have less energy and time to figure out who you are when you go home at night. "

Justin Simien

Home

Culture

" The downside of doing a multi-protagonist movie is that you don't get to service each character as you would if they were the central protagonist of the movie. "

" I am more than a black guy. I am a person, I'm storyteller, I'm a son, I'm a friend, so I am all those things, so it is frustrating, to a degree, to be limited by other people's perceptions of me, but at the same time, it is true that I am a black guy, and, you know, it's like I'm rooted in but not bound by. "

" If I just wanted to put clean, perfect images of black people on the screen for an hour and a half, first of all, there are other people already doing that, and they're making a lot of money doing it. "

" It's called 'Dear White People,' but really, it's about these black characters and how they are involved or not involved in a racial scandal in ways that might surprise them and others, right? "

" That is just the reality of being a marginalized person in this country: you have to deal with the psychological impact of your oppressor - whether that's being a woman dealing with men or gay people dealing with straight people or trans people dealing with everybody else. "

" Hollywood is a world where the only thing that gets green-lit is something that made money the last year. "

" I love great prestige television, but because I make television, sometimes I don't want to, like, you know, fall into a very heavy cerebral drama. "

" There is an obsession with black tragedy. If you see a black movie, it's typically historical, and it tends to deal with our pain. And listen, there have been some excellent films made in that vein, and there are some painful parts of black history that should be explored, but it is kind of weird that only those films bubble up to the surface. "

" Shonda Rhimes has figured it out, of getting multiracial casts on television and appealing to everybody. "

" Satire and comedy are really the only film mediums where you can get into ideas and have people leave the theater without being moralized. "

" I think art is much more valuable when it's honest. If it's not honest, it's just propaganda. "

Justin Simien

Honest

Art

" Everybody else was quoting 2Pac, and I was running around with Green Day in my Walkman. Racially speaking, I wasn't cool or appropriate for any group. "

" One of the things that I love about Robert Altman's movies is that, really, a Robert Altman movie is just a bunch of short films about various people told at the same time. "

" Racism is systemic: It's oppression that's built into the laws, legislation, into the way neighborhoods are policed, and into job opportunities and health care and education. "

" Any time a black person has the audacity to tell everybody else that they're also human beings, they are confronted with all kinds of malice and violence and ill will. It's been that way since black people were brought to this country. "

" I don't doubt that straight white men have identity issues and identity complexes and struggle with defining themselves. "