Misha Green

“I have read H.P. Lovecraft, and I understand why he has influenced so much of horror writing. But because of his history, I wasn't a huge fan.”

“Oppression is not limited to people of color, but if you feel guilty that's something you should confront.”

“The story of the Underground Railroad is a thriller. These are people who are basically in a heist movie, and it's the most precious cargo ever, your life. You're fighting for your freedom.”

“I like to hear conversations that are debates.”

“On 'Underground,' we had used contemporary music to pull you into the present and not just look at it as a portrait on the wall and in the past.”

“It's hard for me to say what viewers will take from a thing because I try not to think about that when I'm making it.”

“'Get Out' definitely brought it to the mainstream, but you can look back at the original 'Night of the Living Dead' and that's definitely a commentary on racism.”

“One of the reasons I love horror so much is - when it's done well - you can keep peeling away the layers and see something new every time.”

“I was familiar with Lovecraft, I also was familiar with his history as a person. So I had read his stories but I wasn't bananas like I think that a lot of people get bananas. I was like, they're good and I can definitely see the influences - but I can definitely read them and see the parts where you're being racist right there in your own stories.”

“When you have people from different parts of the world coming together, it just makes it so much richer.”

“I generally don't think of prospective actors when I write.”

“I'm a huge history buff, so I just love to research, and I'm also slightly lazy.”

“As an artist, you hope you're speaking to the times, and the times are definitely speaking to you. There's no way to avoid that.”

“The Underground Railroad was the first integrated civil rights movement. And it's a great example of when we work together, what we can go against. Which is 600 miles of crazy terrain being chased by slave catchers to get people to be what they should be in the first case - which is free.”

“I don't want to say you should censor yourselves, but the storyteller should be able to defend why a narrative needed to shift that way or should only be told this way.”

“I wanna do mystery, I wanna do sci-fi, I wanna do horror, and I wanna do all of those things.”

“I was working at Talesai, which is a Thai restaurant on Sunset. I actually worked there through selling my first script.”

“In an homage, you always want to subvert it and have fresh new takes. You don't want the audience to say, 'Oh they just did 'The Amityville Horror' there,' you always want to add something new.”

“If the actors aren't reacting the way people would react, that's where you step into disbelief.”

“I do think that Lovecraft is very influential to the horror genre, but I also didn't want to ignore the fact that he's a major racist.”