All Blaxploitation is, is the opportunity for an African-American cast or lead actor or actress to do the same things that a white action hero gets to do.
The thing is, so much of the African American experience is about the redefinition of roots because of slavery. We were uprooted, and there's so much about our whole legacy that was stolen and that we lost in the Transatlantic slave trade that we'll never find out.
I can't turn hip-hop off, just like I can't turn comic books off. It blends into everything for me.
My private joke about 'Luke Cage' is that it's a bulletproof version of 'Lemonade,' and that, essentially, it's a concept album that has a video component.
I was a huge fan of comics: not necessarily 'Luke Cage.' I was more of an 'X-Men' head. I was always more Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, John Byrne.
Rosario Dawson is such a resourceful, intelligent actress that you can do anything with her.
The Caribbean is such a rich place, and Jamaica, personally, is one of my favorite places in the world. I've been lucky to, on various projects, to have spent a lot of time down there.
What Peter Jackson proved with 'Lord Of The Rings' movies is that you could make various changes, and you could pull things around, but as long as it was in the spirit of the storytelling, and because he made The Shire so real, the fans forgave him for the changes.
You have to tell a super story that has some fantastical element, but the human element is what's going to keep people watching.
When I was a journalist, I didn't care how many people talked to Ice Cube before I talked Ice Cube. I just knew that when I talked to Ice Cube, it was going to be different than what anybody else had done, and it was the same with any group.
The Luke Cage you saw in Season One was a reluctant hero. He was trying to figure out if he wanted to be a hero in the first place. And then fate intervened and forced him to step up his game.
Bushmaster was such a great adversary, and Mustafa Shakir, just the way that he embodies him in terms of the power of the voice, the stillness, and then, at the same time, when they do get after it, when he does fight, just how kinetic he was. He just brought a great dynamic and being able to explore his history in making the character Jamaican.
The reason that Shaft has a dominant theme song is because James Bond has a dominant theme song.
My grandfather was a Tuskegee Airman. He flew with the 100th Fighter Squadron.
I wanted Season 2 of Luke Cage to be Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate,' or Fugees' 'The Score,' or Public Enemy's 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,' or my favorite, 'The Low End Theory' by A Tribe Called Quest.
For me, I was never really obsessed with Luke Cage. My obsession was Wolverine.
