I want to challenge myself to see where my limit is and experiment with a lot of different films. A lot of artists from Asia focus too much on their Asian background. I don't want to let go of my background, but to be a success in the U.S., which is ...
I would argue that we have a generation of young people, particularly minorities, who are no longer putting up with the kinds of things their parents put up with. They're much more self-confident. It's no longer acceptable to make fun of people becau...
There are contradictory tendencies in American society. There's a huge range of activities that one can engage in that mark it as a quite free society. It's also true to say that the powers that be have so much control over how people think that ther...
I am more than proud to be European. I love Europe, I love France, but I have an American mentality, and I don't know why. The way I see things, the way I talk, I'm the kind of person who, if I want to say something, I will say it - sometimes in Euro...
I'm a hybrid-genre person, which a lot of people find confusing. I grew up listening to American country music and rock n' roll made between 1955 and 1959. The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry were my first musical loves and are still what I am most m...
I used to work in the cotton fields a lot when I was young. There were a lot of African Americans working out there. A lot of Mexicans - the blacks and the whites and the Mexicans, all out there singing, and it was like an opera in the cotton fields,...
Someday, I have no doubt, the dead from today's wars will be seen with a similar sense of sorrow at needless loss and folly as those millions of men who lie in the cemeteries of France and Belgium - and tens of millions of Americans will feel a simil...
The hate and scorn showered on us Negro officers by our fellow Americans convinced me that there was no sense in my dying for a world ruled by them. I made up my mind that if I got through this war I would study law and use my time fighting for men w...
If you came from Mars and tried to analyse British or American society through novels, you'd think our society was preponderantly full of middle-aged, slightly alcoholic, middle-class, intellectual men, most of whom are divorced from their families a...
Among our many crimes as an imperialistic exploiter of other nations' cultures, stealing their movies ranks lower than selling them cigarettes but higher than killing their game. If you've seen big stupid American versions of France's 'Three Men and ...
I think that the path that I took was normal in the American society where young women and men are not trained as to how to make the transition from being a girl to being a woman, from being a boy to being a man. And so I think that most young people...
My brother often complains to me about the 'angry Asian male' in the United States. As a female, I haven't encountered this, but Asian-American men are angry. They're angry because, for so many years, they've been neglected as sex symbols. Asian wome...
I never thought about how I didn't have a cell phone or I'm in 2011. I was just so happy to be able to be a character in the 30s and there are these actresses that I really liked in the 40s, 50s and 60s in American movies that I've seen since I was a...
There's this little box that African-American actors have to work in, in the first place, and I was able to rise above that box. I could have done a bunch of movies where I stayed as the Axel Foley or Reggie Hammond persona. But I didn't want to be d...
[Lester has just caught Caroline cheating with the Real Estate King] Carolyn Burnham: Uh, Buddy, this is my... Lester Burnham: Her husband. We've met before, but something tells me you're going to remember me this time.
Lester Burnham: You don't think it's kinda weird & fascist? Carolyn Burnham: Possibly, but you don't want to be unemployed. Lester Burnham: Oh well, all right, let's all sell our souls and work for Satan because it's more convenient that way.
Jane Burnham: I don't think we can be friends anymore. Angela Hayes: You're way too uptight about sex. Jane Burnham: Just don't fuck my dad, all right? Please? Angela Hayes: Why not?
Ricky Fitts: Excuse me for speaking so bluntly sir. But those fags make me want to puke my fucking guts out. Colonel Frank Fitts: [cautiously, after a long pause] Well, me too son. Me too.
Lester Burnham: Oh Carolyn, when did you become so... joyless? Carolyn Burnham: Joyless? I'm not joyless. There happens to be a lot about me that you don't know, Mr. Smarty Man. There's plenty of joy in my life.
Jane Burnham: Mom, do we always have to listen to this elevator music? Carolyn Burnham: No. No, we don't. Carolyn Burnham: As soon as you've prepared a nutritious yet savory meal that I'm about to eat, you can listen to whatever you like.
[from trailer] Frank Lucas: The man I worked for had one of the biggest companies in New York City. He didn't own his own company. White man owned it, so they owned him. Nobody owns me, though.
