53 Quotes by Barry Jenkins

Filmmaking is a very privileged art form. It costs a lot of money to make these things.

At school, film-making had been the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me. Then I get to L.A., and it's this whole other thing. I checked out.

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.

To me, no matter who you're casting for what role, if something's authentic, usually you can mine something good there.

There's nothing in Hollywood that's inherently detrimental to good art. I think that's a fallacy that we've created because we frame the work that way too overtly. 'This is Hollywood.' 'This isn't Hollywood.' It's like, 'No, this is actually all Hollywood.' People are just framing them differently.

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.

In hip-hop, sometimes that pace is so fast that you miss things. I don't mean literally miss lyrics; I just think there's an emotion in what these cats are saying that gets by you. When you slow things down, there's this emotion, this yearning.

The way I work, things are very nuanced; not everything is explained.

Cinema is a little over 100 years old, and a lot of what we do is built around film emulsion. Those things were calibrated for white skin. We've always placed powder on skin to dull the light. But my memory of growing up in Miami is this moist, beautiful black skin.