Ryan Coogler

“I think a lot of the source of how people are treated depends on the fact if someone recognizes them as a human being or not, you know what I mean?”

“'Rocky' is an incredibly human story, and 'Creed' is very inspired by the Rocky lore, but there's something kind of profound in letting it all go. This is the first time I'm co-writing, and I'm learning as I go. This process is so different from 'Fruitvale'; hopefully it gets made.”

“Something impacts me emotionally, art is a kind of outlet, and I figure it's the same for a lot of artists. The way my mind deals with things is cinematic.”

“I grew up with white friends, Asian friends - Vietnamese, Chinese, Pacific Islanders. I had Hispanic friends, not just Mexican friends, but Guatemalan friends, Honduran friends, and we knew the difference, you know?”

“You never hear about a pit bull doing anything good in the media. And they have a stigma to them... and, in many ways, pit bulls are like young African-American males. Whenever you see us in the news, it's for getting shot and killed or shooting and killing somebody - for being a stereotype.”

“I think that when you're making a story... that's based on somebody, the filmmaker has his duty to do his research.”

“I came up with this really crazy idea, this really small personal story that takes place in a universe that we are familiar with. Rocky is retired, kind of set adrift. He's very lonely in his world. His life has gone by waiting for the inevitable. It's not 'Rocky 7.'”

“I kind of remember when I was young, I used to hang out with my dad sometimes. And I can remember just following him in and out of these domestic situations. Going to the grocery store, we'd go pick up my other brother, or we'd go here, go there.”

“If I hear about a tsunami that hit Asia, hundreds of people have lost their lives, and you see it and you hear about it, but you still brush your teeth, still have to go on with your day. But let you get information about one person who you're close to or you're intimate with, it has an almost paralyzing effect.”

“Even reading my first bad review was an awesome experience. It was cool because you make something and not everybody's going to like it. I felt like that kind of grew me up a little bit into a professional. I was a student filmmaker, and no one writes reviews about student films.”

“In 2009, I went to Cannes with a short film in the Kodak emerging program at the American Pavilion.”

“What's important to me is offering perspectives into worlds that people don't often get to see. Do you know what I mean? From angles they don't often get to see.”

“For me, with me, making a film is always about humanity.”

“I've directed things that other people have written before, and I've written things and given them to other directors. So I'm very versatile in terms of that, and I enjoy all of it.”

“I'm kind of a tech geek. With the camera work, I chose to shoot super 16, which has a real tactile feel. I feel it's as authentic as possible; I love the way the grain feels.”

“To recognize yourself in a character onscreen, and to connect with them, you gotta recognize their flaws; they gotta feel like a real person.”

“I used to write in school a lot; I always liked it and used to write on my own, comic books, come up with alternate story lines to the stuff I watched and read, a lot of books and TV, episodes of 'Twilight Zone.' I didn't think about it.”

“Before playing football, I didn't fit in anywhere. My parents didn't have a lot of money, which they spent on our education to send us to Catholic private school in Oakland, mostly black. The other kids had more money than I did. I started school early; I was young. So I'd come back to my hood and read.”

“I have real good parents. I have two brothers, and we got good educations. My parents didn't have a whole lot of money, but they spent the money they had on private school for us, Catholic school.”

“My school was pretty much all African Americans, but it was still a little tough to be in because I didn't have a lot of money. And when I came back to my neighborhood, it was tough to fit in there, too, because I was wearing Catholic school clothes, and I had two parents, which was rare.”