Quotes

I want to pick material that involves me. I always tell my team that I never want to make the same movie twice. That's what terrifies me the most.

I decided to take on projects that I thought would break down walls rather than build them up, and to perpetuate positivity rather than to enforce negativity in who I was as a black man.

[on the new 'Nate Parker School of Film and Drama' at Wiley College] The hope is that we cover all aspects of filmmaking, from sound, lighting and cinematography, to just studying film specifically with the cultural component and the history of film. (...) You control the moving picture, you control the masses ... so really getting them rallied around the idea of reclaiming the narrative of America, specifically through the eyes of people of color. (...) If I can create a pipeline toward filmmaking physically through developing the college, having filmmakers be nurtured and cultivated here, and then having somewhere for them to go with respect for them actually being able to engage in filmmaking here in East Texas, then it kind of serves multiple purposes. [March 2016]

[Essence.com, August 2012] I'd love to play Nat Turner. What I would never play? Anyone wearing a dress. We just need more images of men. We've been emasculated physically, metaphorically too many times for me to support it. For me, that's where the line stops.

[on The Birth of a Nation (2016)] I don't want this to be a film. I want it to be a movement. I don't want it to be a moment in time. I want a launch pad for conversation around how we can deal with our trauma collectively. Then we can create a cultural shift. [2016]

[on Nat Turner] He became my hero in college. I never heard about him until I went to college. [2016]