"Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okora was a favorite book because I was only reading news articles when my partner, Janaya, bought if for me. It reminded [me] that Black girl magic is everywhere."

"Same thing, The Wizard of Oz — that will always be one of my all-time favorites. The transition from black-and-white into color, you know, that idea of merging the two worlds using cinematic magic, to meld those worlds for the first time ever. I mean, you look back at the movie and obviously you can see now that there were backdrops and cheap sets and all of that kind of stuff, where today we would probably laugh at it and brush it off as a B-movie. But in those days it was magic. And it’s still magic."

"The films that really changed my life were all the films made by Charlie Chaplin. Films like The Gold Rush. They were silent films, they were black and white. As a kid, I would just completely get mesmerized with every aspect of cinema. That kind of magic I’d never yet seen, the magic Charlie Chaplin created on screen — in terms of performances, in terms of technique, in terms of innocence, in terms of purity. I would wonder, “Is there anyone in the world who can match this?” I would see other films, and I’d think, “No, this guy is a real genius.” He makes me smile. And sometimes he moves me."

"A classic, and I grew up loving Judy Garland, and Bert Lahr is an amazing actor. As a child I watched it over and over again. It just represents the magic of moviemaking. I love how it goes from black-and-white to technicolor. My dad was a big Judy Garland fan growing up, so we would hear all these stories about her and the old studio system, so that’s one of my favorites."