I'm a huge Spike Lee fan. I saw 'Do The Right Thing' twice in the same night when it first came out and had long conversations with all my friends about the issues in it.
Everybody knows when you've got a role in a Spike Lee movie, you're gonna blow up. But I happen to be the only person who's had the lead in the two Spike Lee movies nobody saw.
'Straight Outta Compton' is my first biopic, my first period piece, and I got a chance to kind of get out there like some of my idols, you know, like Scorsese, Spielberg, Spike Lee, the guys who came before me. You know, I'm feeling good about it.
Me and Spike Lee are good friends. I got a lot of respect for Spike just because of who he is, what he stands for, and the support for that organization. Even when it was bad he was there.
I knew it,’ she says. ‘I knew I had met you before. I knew it the first time I saw your photograph. It’s as if we had to meet again at some point in this life. I talked to my friends about it, but they thought I was crazy, that thousands of people must say the same thing about thousands of other people every day. I thought they must be right, but life… life brought you to me. You came to find me, didn’t you?
I came in on this movie after there had been a director and I came in after Tom Courtenay had talked to Ron Harwood about making a movie. So, you know Tom and Albert Finney had been friends since the beginning of their career as they became stars around the same time - Tom always reminds me that Albert was first with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and then Tom with The Long Distance Runner.
You saw what network support did for Strikeforce when Showtime came aboard. You saw what Spike TV did for the UFC when they came aboard, because the UFC was dying before Spike came along.
I saw 'The Empire Strikes Back' the week that it came out. My father was a huge 'Star Wars' fan. And so when it came out, my dad took me.
I saw The Empire Strikes Back the week that it came out. My father was a huge Star Wars fan. And so when it came out, my dad took me.
I don't know if it's really important, or intelligent even, when people say to me I'm a white Spike Lee, because they said to Spike Lee you're a black Woody Allen.
There [is] a feeling of recognition, as of meeting an old friend, which comes to us all in the face of great artistic experiences. I had the same experience when I first heard an English folksong, when I first saw Michelangelo's Day and Night, when I suddenly came upon Stonehenge or had my first sight of New York City - the intuition that I had been there already.
I've always been a huge Butthole Surfers fan. The first time I saw them was in the early '80s when all they had out was their first EP. I thought they were amazing. They've always been a huge influence and one of my all-time favorite bands.
'Do the Right Thing' has been a big influence on me. I saw it when it first came out in 1989. I was about 18, and it blew me away on many levels - I had never seen anything like it before.
Spike Lee gave me the greatest reaction to the fact that I was this athlete-meets-artist, because I think he saw that I was different. I learned that oftentimes, Spike directs in a sense that he might just stare at you and look at you in a telepathic way of communicating.
Spike Lee is one of my biggest influences. What I love about Spike, other than he's just a fun guy to hang around, is that Spike is fearless. As much as people talk about him being politically outspoken, let's not forget that he's one of the best screenwriters, ever, in addition to being a visual master.
So many people - DPs, writers, and the assistants that go on to be directors and writers - come from the School of Spike Lee. He's almost set up an Institution of Spike Lee.
I saw Elvis live in '54. It was at the Big D Jamboree in Dallas and the first thing, he came out and spit on the stage...it affected me exactly the same way as when I first saw that David Lynch film. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it to.