So many kids that we label as ‘thugs‘ and ‘criminals‘ are often those same kids that end up in circumstances that are out of their own control.

For me, I think of ‘Dope‘ as an album. There may be a love song and there may be a party song, but it’s all coming from one artist.

I was in high school and college as hip-hop was really sort of coming into its own as a, you know, creative force, as a sort of cultural voice. And it really spoke to me.

I met Forest Whitaker on ‘Our Family Wedding‘ and we struck up a real bond and friendship.

I’m first generation American, and my parents were both from Nigeria.

I loved films like ‘When Harry Met Sally‘ and ‘Annie Hall,’ but these were very specific, white Manhattan experiences. You don’t see a single person of color anywhere, but somehow these films are universal. As a filmmaker and creator, I was frustrated with that idea.

In high school, I was into a lot of different stuff, and I did ride skateboards.

Ultimately we’re all moving towards a time when the races will be more and more mixed and we will all be brown to some extent.

I always come back to Inglewood for inspiration when I need it.

What should be driving the conversation is: What’s the story? What’s the movie about? Is it a compelling story? And if it is, then you make it regardless of the color of the people behind or in front of the camera.

I don’t like the term ‘black film,’ and I am proud to be black.

In many ways the film business is behind what’s going on culturally. We are a world that is becoming more diverse and there’s no going back.

I feel like geek is about obsession. I feel like I geek out on certain things and that just means it’s a mad devotion or obsession to something.

I’ve been a fan of Wendell Pierce for a very long time. He was in one of my early movies and he brings such a level of heart and humanity to his roles.

I was always this weird outcast kid.

I’m probably going to be ashamed to say this… It was a Sir Mix-a-Lot album. I think I was 12, 13. I had just enough money for the ‘My Posse‘s on Broadway‘ single, so I bought that single. That was the first thing I bought with my own money.

But at the end of the day, the lottery of birth shouldn’t determine your value to the world.

I was fortunate to write pretty much a year out of film school and start making movies in the Hollywood studio system. But with each progressive film it became more frustrating not being able to speak and say things I wanted to say.

When I wrote ‘High Stakes,’ I followed the classical format. I wrote an outline first, then a first draft, then got feedback and rewrote and rewrote it. I’d never done that before.

As a black man working in the business, it’s a challenge sometimes to get some of these things and these stories told when they don’t quite fit in a box or convention of what people expect of you or what you should be telling.

You can’t control where you are born, and when you’re growing up, until you’ve seen something else, you’re just living your life.

People come to L.A. and they expect to see a ghetto like the projects, but that’s not the way it’s set up. Inglewood, in particular, is the furthest thing from a ghetto. It’s a middle-class community, but it’s gotten a bad rap over the years… because of ‘Grand Canyon‘ and ‘Pulp Fiction‘ and other films.

All films are a challenge and they are a harder challenge when dealing with characters of color.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was coming up, but it feels almost ancient that you had to go to the library and you had ‘World Book Encyclopedias.’

Now being 41 and looking back on my career… It became natural for me to revisit Inglewood and to revisit the coming-of-age movie, but not wanting it to feel like a period piece completely about nostalgia but wanting it to feel like something that was relevant today and also forward-looking.

As filmmakers and as actors, you have to find truth.

There’s this responsibility you feel to present a certain thing that kind of respectability politics. I think that became the only accepted way of defining black culture. I started to become too aware of ‘How does this look?’ instead of ‘Who are these characters?’

It could be why it’s getting harder and harder to get people into the cinemas and multiplexes, because we’re just seeing a world that doesn’t reflect reality.

When you’re young, you sort of have an idea that this is how it’s always gonna be as a filmmaker. And then you have the ups and downs of trying to get your art created in an industry that doesn’t traditionally make films with you and people that look like you behind the camera.

‘Black cinema‘ I don’t even know what that means. It’s just cinema. When Paul Thomas Anderson makes a movie, we don’t just say it’s ‘white cinema.’

I wanted to try and change the idea of what we call mainstream. So many times what we call mainstream is upper middle class white suburbia. And anything outside of that is considered niche.

Societies are being interconnected and we have to adjust to that fact.

I grew up on Spielberg and Lucas. That was sort of what inspired me to make movies.

Broadway doesn’t mean anything in Los Angeles.

Gangs are a part of living in Los Angeles, but you can exist in Inglewood or Culver City or anywhere else, without joining one.

Nineties hip-hop in particular really shaped what became the common pop cultural language that we all speak.

I don’t know, my parents were pretty open about a lot of things, especially my mom. And any kind of little crazy thing I was into, she was very supportive of. You know, whether it was BMX bike racing or being in the Boy Scouts or surfing or anything else, she always seemed to sort of support it.

It’s insidious how Hollywood warps your values without you even realizing that it’s happening to you. You get a little whiff of success and it whets your appetite, and before you know it you’re going right down the road they’ve laid out for you.

It would have been more comfortable for us as a society if Anita Hill wasn’t as intelligent, poised, and credible as she was.

Magic has lived an extraordinary life as a champion athlete, passionate activist, and highly successful entrepreneur. The impact of Magic’s life on the game of basketball and beyond is undeniable.

Inglewood for me was where I really found my voice found sort of the core group of friends that I still have to today.

It was titled ‘Confirmation‘ very purposefully. I wanted the film to be about that process – about how Judge Thomas and Anita Hill were thrown into a situation that was difficult for anyone to navigate, no matter what the truth was. It’s hard to know what the truth is.

I felt like Inglewood, being the place where I originally found my voice, would be the place where I could sort of redefine my voice.

I consider ‘Dope’ a part of the new mainstream.

For me growing up when hip hop was forming and maturing and coming into its own, I just felt I was a part of something really exciting. I was a part of it as a consumer.

We all would shudder if what we did, no matter what, in our 20s and early 30s were publicly displayed on a national stage.

Everything about who I am, negative and positive, is what shaped me.

I was a political science major before I transferred into film school.

These actors who were in ‘Dope’ are the actors I want to continue to collaborate and make films with from here on out.

I always say it’s hard to cast an African-American film sometimes because those kinds of actors just aren’t out there.