Inclusive Filmmaking Quotes

I love directors who aren't going back to the stereotypes, who are helping write and create roles for women that are not in the typical Hollywood box. I'm very, very interested in films that are going outside of stereotypical roles for women.

The people who can be helping to make movies that have blacks and Latinos and women and all that - that movie doesn't come to you. Because the idea is that there's no place for black movies.

I'm a film director. Gay is an adjective that I certainly am, but I don't know that it's my first one. I think if you're just a gay filmmaker, you get pigeonholed just like if you say I'm a black filmmaker, I'm a Spanish filmmaker, I'm a whatever.

We need more female directors, we also need men to step up and identify with female characters and stories about women. We don't want to create a ghetto where women have to do movies about women. To assume stories about women need to be told by a woman isn't necessarily true, just as stories about men don't need a male director.

We have African-Americans and black people getting behind the scenes more and more, we get true black images in television and film...because we have black people behind them. They can tell stories from those points of view and bring to life those characters who have yet to be shown. As long as we have people behind the camera just as much as in front of the camera doing the work, then we'll always be good.

Making a movie about one group of people isolates the larger majority. That's what I require of the projects that I'm involved with. I would not ever make a movie strictly for Latinos.

I'm not interested in making all-black films - I come from a very diverse culture; I want to work with every type of person. I work a lot with women executives because they seem to be a lot more open minded about that and a lot more progressive in that way.

I think that whenever there's a good script we try to make that happen, but it's all based off of a good story, a good script, but I don't believe you should do it just because it's African-American.

We know there needs to be diversity in storytellers telling their own stories. I think there's a beautiful forward movement in that direction with McQueen telling '12 Years A Slave,' with Coogler telling 'Fruitvale,' and with Daniels telling 'The Butler.'

The most exciting thing I've seen is directors not only being open to actors coming in the room with different abilities but actively looking at ways that the story can be enlarged with disabled actors.

I'm not interested in making movies only with female protagonists. I think it's ridiculous to think that a female director can't direct men. That makes no sense to me.

It was really really neat to make the movie because there were mentally challenged actors in the movie. So that was really really cool to work with them and they were always really happy, and they made everybody really happy on the set too.

What I want to do is create great content on television and movies. It is not my role to program only for Latinos, and you can't really assume that Hispanics only want Hispanic content. But I do think that we are severely underrepresented in television and film. And instead of complaining about not seeing ourselves, we should become film producers, directors, and writers, and tell our story.

We haven't done enough work to encourage minorities to strive to make movies. Hollywood is a place full of white male directors - there are many good ones. We just haven't nurtured our voices.

I ask everyone - white Hollywood and black Hollywood - to get outside of your comfort zone and make friends. That's where they're going to learn from each other, and that's where they're going to make better movies and make Hollywood a better place.

I want to see more people of different backgrounds being cast in films. I want to see people from inner cities being discovered, because that's where you find some really brilliant artists.