George Tillman, Jr. Quotes

I realized that food was actually a metaphor for bringing us all together. It's about us communicating and being like family.

I'm a big fan of the 70's action films. Where there is a lot of character and a lot of great action, but the action is kind of cemented with a great back-story with characters. And I thought, this kind of reminded me of the movies that, early on when I was telling Dwayne (Johnson) and the guys, the producer ... my whole thing is if you look at a movie like The Driver by Walter Hill, it's a film where there's no names. They are just named, "the driver", "the cop".

I call it soul food, and I call it compassion food because it kind of bonds loved ones together. It kept families together for a long time.

Filmmakers are always in a bubble; along with our crew or writer, we don't really get to socialize with other filmmakers, so the great thing about Sundance is you can see many other filmmakers doing the same thing you do.

There was a group of six women in my household. My mom, aunts and grandma. I watched them in the kitchen.

Food was a labor of love you felt by cooking it and eating it.

I never paid attention to many of the Nicholas Sparks films. 'The Notebook,' which my wife liked, I felt that Ryan Gosling was a genius in it and Rachel McAdams has this thing about her that you just want to take care of her. I remember that chemistry between them.

I shoot a lot of film - that's one of the things I try to do, and it's one of the things I learned how to do with Robert De Niro on 'Men of Honor.'

Even looking at my last film, 'Notorious,' you got a perception about B.I.G. and who he was, but there was a different side to him.

I love telling stories from a kid's point of view because they don't really see all the obstacles in front of them. They're resilient, and sometimes adults can steal that from them.

I used to get so upset with my father. I'd ask him, 'Why do I have to be around all these women all the time?' But in time, I learned that was an advantage.

Several hundred years ago, the only thing that slave families had was cooking and their family meals.

It's called 'Miles Davis, Prince of Darkness,' and it's about Miles Davis, the genius, and why he was the way he was, and how he changed music so many times. He changed music six times. So, I'm excited about that movie.

Sometimes I get into the movies and into the roles; it's hard for me to move on.

Steve McQueen was the guy who said less, and everything was all behind his words and what he didn't say, and you still felt emotionally connected and rooted behind him.

It's a balance. Like, we are shooting the big car chase at the end and it's me with everybody. And I got my stunt coordinator who shot some stuff and I'm like, you are right next to me, why don't we do it together.

I don't really consider myself a writer.

I wanted to make a movie about a black family in Middle America. I wanted to make a film where everyone can look at them and say, 'This is my family.'

Is grey, and I like that about all the characters, the killer, the driver ... the movie has a very unlikely Hollywood ending, at the same time it helps you for a sequel too. Those are the things that I think are attractive, it's more, its real life, and people can identify with it and it just grounds it to a certain degree. That's the reason why.

You can't make an action movie without action, and so, you can't make a romance movie without romance.

I just felt like, you know, I read a lot of scripts out in L.A., out here in the industry and I just felt like this film was just being genuine. I just felt like it had really great characters. And all the three different characters have completely different stories and they're all kind of intertwined together thematically. So I just thought it had great characters, great themes