"Glory. Mr. Ed Zwick. I believe the original story was more concentrated on the officers, and what Ed seemed to find was the movie — and I love when that happens, when he lets the movie dictate how he should cut it or lets the movie dictate how he should roll it out — and it became about those soldiers. And he didn’t seem to manipulate any of the greatness that was going on in that film. He wasn’t arrogant about having an understanding of the culture. He seemed to appreciate it and understand. They’re bringing these actors that are bringing out the culture and the stuff that I could never anticipate, I could never prepare for, that was not on the page. It was transformative. The whole thing was. It was not only a history lesson, it was a meaningful time in the business of diversity and seeing characters that look like me — you know, that they were my color — in the business at the time have that sort of platform to embrace the inner workings, from the slave trade to the first soldiers, the emancipated men. I felt like that was such an important film. I knew every line for every character. I mean, I lived that movie. It was my upbringing. That was my school, basically. I literally knew every line. From Robert Gould Shaw to Frederick Douglass’ one scene. I knew that line too. It was kind of crazy. I wanted a blue suit for Christmas, and I broke the VHS tape and I wanted a new VHS tape for Christmas, too. And also the score. Hearing that score with those black faces — you see it in Barry Jenkins’ films as well. I just felt like Ed Zwick deserved more credit than he got. He should get more recognition. He made, I think, a perfect film, too. I think it’s a perfect film."

"I, on opening day, saw The Wizard of Oz — 1939, in Providence, Rhode Island. I even remember the theater, the Majestic Theater. Our dad [took us] and we slept in the street that night to wait for the first showing of it. And of course, just like everybody else on this planet, it’s made a lifetime impression on me. As a matter of fact, I think that H.R. Pufnstuft, which was our first television show, the whole feeling came from The Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t like it, but the story — with a boy instead of a girl, and all the characters and the trees and the witch — but we went in a whole other direction with ours. As a matter of fact, when the first Pufnstuft movie came out a year after we did the series, Time Magazine said it was “the next Wizard of Oz.” That was quite a statement. What else? Margaret Hamilton — as a matter of fact, I think the very last job that she had before she left us was in Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. She played the crazy lady next door who kept seeing the little monster and nobody believed her. She did two or three episodes for us. And the reason she wanted to do it? She wanted to meet Billie Hayes, who was Witchiepoo. She said Witchiepoo is the best witch; as a matter of fact, Billie Hayes met her at the airport and they became great friends. And the reason for being of Land of the Lost? In 1940 there was a movie called One Million B.C. Marty was just a couple of years old, and I was eleven. I had never seen a dinosaur moving; no one had. Only in our schoolbooks. I would take him to see One Million B.C. with Victor Mature… wow. That made a huge impression. It scared the hell out of me. Because, like I said, we had never seen a dinosaur moving before! And that idea gave us the idea to do Land of the Lost."

"Pacino in Scarface. That’s another one, just because it was where I was from. I am half Cuban American. That wasn’t the story necessarily of Cuban Americans but I know a lot of the guys that I grew up with and a lot of the people I grew up with felt that way. Being first generation — you know people had a lot to prove. And God, I feel that movie is so sleek, and very much what Miami is. It was really cool. It was a really interesting time when the Mariel boatlift happened and Castro emptying out his prisons and insane asylums. It was a crazy time. I think crime went up by 200 percent in Miami. I mean, literally we had killers on the street and it was a f—ing nutty time. I remember somebody saying that it’s funny that I ended up doing comedy, and I was so into all these other super hardcore dramatic films. But I just remember Al Pacino doing an interview once and him saying that he was — while he was doing that — he kinda really dropped into the role and became this really kind of vicious guy to play Tony Montana. And he said he was coming out of his house one day, and I guess some guy’s doberman had gotten loose and he was kind of “in it” on his way to work — and this doberman came up to him and he realized the doberman was going to attack. And he just kind of planted himself — you know, all Tony Montana — and just f—ing was like “Hey!” And the dog kinda turned around and whimpered and ran away [laughing]. And he was like, “Me, Al Pacino — I would have freaked out but I was just in this thing and I was really in — and this dog comes in… ‘This guy’s f—ing danger, you know? Stay away.'”"