'Black film,' that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, 'We've made our black film. We've made our film with people of color in it,' as opposed to, 'I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.'

When I started at Pratt, Spike Lee had his 40 Acres and A Mule studios down the street. You'd see Rosie Perez walking around going to Mike's Coffee Shop. So it was this black bohemian.

I often thought that if I had been working with Mark James at American Studios, I would have had a pop hit before I ever moved out of Memphis. But that didn't happen.

I know my audience, and they're not people that the studios know anything about.

Relatives cannot help you in the studios. You stand or fall by your own efforts.

I wish I had come along when the studios were making those big musical pictures. It would be great to do re-makes of some of the old ones like 'Porgy and Bess' or 'Showboat.' I'd love to do 'em.

I don't see a lot, but I think what the movie studios know and what they always know but they kind of ignore, which is that a there's an audience for movies like 'Get Out,' and 'Hidden Figures,' and to some extent 'Moonlight,' which made a lot less money than 'Hidden Figures' did.

Always carry a handkerchief. Especially in television studios.

If Barbra Steisand wants to make a picture called 'My Pink Fingernail,' the studios will go, 'Gee, Barbra, what a wonderful idea! Money is no object! Take two years in preproduction and write the music, and you'll direct.'

I didn't have the kind of budget to compete with the big studios, therefore I had to make my films more outlandish, more outrageous.

I like studios. I just don't like bureaucracies.

The plan was criticized by some retired military officers embedded in TV studios. But with every advance by our coalition forces, the wisdom of that plan becomes more apparent.

It's hard to get movie studios to pay a lot of money for movies that don't have robots or explosions.

I still don't understand the music industry that much. Everything I learned was from hanging out with rock musicians in studios. I certainly have respect for those who make music their livelihood.

I went to NYU thinking I was going to make a 'Die Hard' sequel, or maybe action and genre films for the studios, but I ended up falling in love with personal cinema.

I had no allusions of radio success. I just loved being in studios. I was having fun and in that sense I now feel a lot like I did when I did that record.

And usually the studios they don't want you to have credit for your movies because they want to take credit for the movies because if you get credit for your movies they've got to pay you more.

A lot of people think that I grew up in recording studios and knew the whole process, but that was never the case.

Actually, my true name is Rosa Dolores Alverio. And then I became Rosita Moreno when a stepfather stepped in. And when I got to MGM studios, which was my first film contract, they just thought that Rosita wasn't a good name, and they changed it to Rita. And yes, it was their idea.

The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work; especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea.