Barry Jenkins Quotes
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A month alone would make me so happy. Not good for my dating prospects.
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I'm always about, 'What is the most productive version of what I'm putting into the world?' Something that can be engaged by all folks. I don't have to change everyone.
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Not all my work features black actors. I mean, it's funny: someone was reading back to me all the languages that have appeared in my films, whether they were shorts or features. They span Arabic, French, Mandarin, Cantonese - all kinds of languages. I think it's really cool.
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I was hiding behind athletics and all my jockitude, so I didn't have to deal with being ostracized as the weird art kid.
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'Moonlight' changed me. To see people so moved by this movie inspires me to find something else to offer. And maybe the next one touches only five people or maybe just one person. To me, you know, that would still be worth it.
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I used to be obsessed with race. I'm more obsessed with class now.
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If you try to create something that everybody can relate to, you're gonna make something that nobody can relate to.
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I'm so damn boring. I like reading and writing and making coffee. And walking. Barry Jenkins likes long walks.
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It used to be that watching a film was a very special occasion, the same way flying was. Before, if you took a flight from New York to L.A., most of the windows would be open. Now, we get on planes and we just close them because we're so used to what it feels like. I think the same thing has happened with cinema.
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Film is not an amazing medium to relay interiority. I think literature is much better for that.
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You walk on a set, and you have no idea - that's why I don't storyboard. It's all possible.
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My films are personal-voice-driven films about human characters and the place we live. Technically, I'm an independent filmmaker.
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As a filmmaker, I really want to utilize the tools to carry the voice - my voice, and the voice of the characters.
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Whenever I tell people I'm from Miami, they always ask me about the beach. But I can count on one hand the times I went there as a kid.
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It's interesting because I think class is a heavy, heavy part of 'Moonlight,' and I think, in a certain way, through the sum of all these parts, it's become a commentary on the black experience in America.
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I just came back from my hometown, making a movie about a kid who grew up just like me, and it was financed by white people in New York. Personally, I can't be angry. In my personal experience, the support was there.
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As a writer, a blank page will humble the hell out of you. It always does, and it always will.
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I really sort of kept to myself. I kind of just watched the world. And I think to keep people from messing with me, yeah, you know, I went out to run track. I went out for the football team. Not because I love track or love football.
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As a filmmaker whose first film was made with the DIY tools of digital cinema, I love how the democratization of the filmmaking process and platforms like YouTube enables people to tell stories that in previous generations simply could not be told.
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'Moonlight' is a story that hasn't been told. Whether placed as queer black cinema or urban male cinema, the lack of coming-of-age films featuring people like Chiron and set in places like inner-city Miami is pronounced and unfortunate.
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The way I work, things are very nuanced; not everything is explained.
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Growing up, I wasn't the most vocal kid in the world. I feel like I learned through observation, and usually, when you're watching things, you're not speaking. That sort of metastasized in a way that I began to participate less and less in the world.
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I worked for Oprah Winfrey for two years right out of college in 2004. I was a director's assistant on the film 'Their Eyes Were Watching God,' which Oprah produced.
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To me, no matter who you're casting for what role, if something's authentic, usually you can mine something good there.