Justin Simien

I don't doubt that straight white men have identity issues and identity complexes and struggle with defining themselves.

— Justin Simien

I thought I was depressed because I wasn't a writer/director. I moved into a space where I'm a writer/director, my movie is…

— Justin Simien

I saw 'Beauty and the Beast' at eight years old in theatres and spent hours trying to recreate the majestic imagery of…

— Justin Simien

I'm very interested in clans and the way people group together, and there's a lot of group shots. There's a lot of…

— Justin Simien

One of the things that I love about Robert Altman's movies is that, really, a Robert Altman movie is just a bunch…

— Justin Simien

I am more than a black guy. I am a person, I'm storyteller, I'm a son, I'm a friend, so I am…

— Justin Simien

There are a plethora of ways of being black, just like there's many ways to being white.

— Justin Simien

The way Hollywood and TV is, black people don't have any choice but to see ourselves in white-dominated television shows and stories…

— Justin Simien

Everybody else was quoting 2Pac, and I was running around with Green Day in my Walkman. Racially speaking, I wasn't cool or…

— Justin Simien

Self-doubt is a constant companion for a chubby, gay, black boy born in the South.

— Justin Simien

In the press, there's this desire for the black audience to be this monolithic thing that always responds to the same stars.…

— Justin Simien

It is a fine line between making fun of the right thing and making fun of the wrong thing. And the language…

— Justin Simien

Hip-hop isn't dead by any means, but it's not something I define my black identity with.

— Justin Simien

I took an internship at Focus Features while I was in film school. I was really interested in how specialty movies were…

— Justin Simien

Racism is wrong, racism is very dangerous.

— Justin Simien

America is a different country, and it will forever be a different country after the election of Donald Trump.

— Justin Simien

What you want to do is talk about ideas, you write a novel, you have a lecture about those ideas. Satire and…

— Justin Simien

If I just wanted to put clean, perfect images of black people on the screen for an hour and a half, first…

— Justin Simien

It is frustrating having to walk through America having to bob and weave people's impressions of me because they see a tall…

— Justin Simien

Satire and comedy are really the only film mediums where you can get into ideas and have people leave the theater without…

— Justin Simien

The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned all kinds of activism.

— Justin Simien

I remember distinctly not seeing myself. I didn't see myself in black culture, white culture, mass culture.

— Justin Simien

There can't be reverse racism against a group that is not at a disadvantage.

— Justin Simien

I like the movies that embrace the complexity of the human condition.

— Justin Simien

I talk about being a 'what' to people. Like, being gay in mainstream society is a different kind of 'what' than being…

— Justin Simien