Top 33 Barry Jenkins Quotes

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.

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

I think everybody can identify, you know, with this sort of struggle to decide for yourself who you are, you know, and what your place in life is.

‘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.

I think it’s really important to remind, reinforce people that their lives have value, you know? That their lives have worth.

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.

I have friends who I consider my peers, who have done amazing work, particularly in the film and television space, who came up as independent artists and who have been – to be brutally honest – much more prolific than I was able to be.

I’m process-orientated. Awards, by their nature, are results-orientated.

I used to be obsessed with race. I’m more obsessed with class now.

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.

I’m very much a person of nurture over nature. When the world is not nurturing, it can really change a man.

I’m so damn boring. I like reading and writing and making coffee. And walking. Barry Jenkins likes long walks.

Film is not an amazing medium to relay interiority. I think literature is much better for that.

A month alone would make me so happy. Not good for my dating prospects.

We are carrying these images out into the world, and we can’t control how people contextualize those images no matter how virtuous our aspirations and our intentions are.

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.

There were times when we didn’t have hot water or a phone line. But I guarantee you, we always had cable, and it was always on.

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.

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

You walk on a set, and you have no idea – that’s why I don’t storyboard. It’s all possible.

I wasn’t known as a neighborhood tough or anything like that. But yeah, I was, like, a scrappy kid. You know, I kind of kept to myself, you know?

‘Moonlight’ isn’t an issue film. It’s not about addiction, it’s not about sexuality, it’s not about identity. It’s about all these different layers, because they are all a part of the character.

I love production. I could do it 365 days a year. Post is different. It’s just too slow, and everything is very finite.

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.

I was hiding behind athletics and all my jockitude, so I didn’t have to deal with being ostracized as the weird art kid.

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.

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.

My first job was cutting grass. In Miami, this grass grows everywhere. You just get the lawn mower out, walk down the neighborhood, cut grass.

Until ‘Moonlight,’ I had never seen one black man cook for another on screen. But I wanted the characters to be free of ‘groundbreaking’ or ‘never before.’ We were ascribed those things. They weren’t the point.

I got into film school. I went and didn’t know anything about it. Over the course of two years, I kind of got kind of good at it. You know, I had a brief moment where I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I didn’t know you needed light to expose film.

My films are personal-voice-driven films about human characters and the place we live. Technically, I’m an independent filmmaker.

If you try to create something that everybody can relate to, you’re gonna make something that nobody can relate to.

I grew up really poor and have always been the type of person who will work earlier or work harder or more than the other person to even the playing field.