Eriq La Salle

I think that you make the best choice with the information that you have before you at that given time.

But I try not to become preoccupied with that because with whatever direction I follow, with whatever advice I’ve followed or not followed, It’s landed me in New York, in a very beautiful hotel, talking to people about something that I love. So I ain’t that far off.

Art should offend people because art should challenge people.

But I did on projects that I produced, that I directed, that I acted in because it was important. I want to be a filmmaker. I don’t want to be an actor who directs, I want to be a director. I want to be a filmmaker. So that’s a big difference.

So It’s not like I go from being this disciplined person who has to get up and go to work to now I just lay around all day in my underwear eating Cheerios. I have this structure. I still have to do this and the difference is I’m doing this for me and my company.

Regardless of what people ultimately think about Crazy As Hell, It’s not the type of film that, ten minutes after seeing it, you’re only focused on what you want to eat.

I don’t see me doing $100 million films because $100 million films, the very nature of them, you need to offend as few people as possible just to make your money back.

The films that have influenced me and the films that have motivated me and inspired me were films that resonated, films that made me think after I saw them.

I think American cinema, particularly, has become so disposable. It’s not even cinema, It’s just moviemaking.

Maybe It’s not the biggest blockbuster film, but there will be some people that will see it, that will be debating it, that will be questioning their own sense of spirituality. If the film resonates, then I have succeeded in what I set out to do.

You can’t do psychological thrillers. There’s no audience. I’ve heard this. I’ve heard this from studios.

It’s my company and I believe in the company that’s why I started it.

Well that’s the point: People don’t normally take away things from films anymore. You go and see a $100 million film, half an hour later, your biggest concern is what are you going to be eating.

Ever since I’ve left, I’ve been doing nothing but this film and traveling, promoting and doing festivals. So the good thing is that I’m not sitting around pining over whether I made the right choice in leaving. I’m moving and grooving.

Just trying to get a film made which is always difficult no matter what kind of a budget you have. Not having a budget makes it even more difficult. Having nineteen days and no budget makes it extremely difficult.

Normally, we see characters that have God complexes. How interesting, I thought, it would be to capitalize on that. And say, OK, well fine, you have a God complex, well this person has a Satan complex. And the doctor chooses to treat him scientifically.

The Sixth Sense is not a good white film. Insomnia is not a good white film. They’re just good films. So why we can’t we have good films that happen to have black people, or Asian, or Latino, or any other minority group in them?

So that, to me, is important that audiences are treated with an amount of respect toward their intelligence. Most Hollywood films don’t respect their intelligence.