Dee Rees Quotes

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Dee Rees

Profession : Director

Birth : February 7, 1977

In an industry that's uncertain and when you're in a lot of situations that are anxiety-causing, to have someone there who has your back unconditionally and cares for you and the material and would give anything to make sure everything is OK, makes you feel so much better. It gives you a sense of security as an artist.

Dee Rees

I feel a lot of folks, like teenagers, can feel like outcasts.

Dee Rees

For kids who are struggling, who are of faith, just reconciling yourself to the fact that God loves you, accepts you for who you are, is a big step in the healing, especially when your biological family is unaccepting of you.

Dee Rees

I kept getting offered all this young adult stuff. I don't want to keep telling teen coming-of-age stories!

Dee Rees

I'm interested in characters and relationships.

Dee Rees

The best thing in the world is to put two characters who hate each other side by side. Or put two people who love each other far away, so they have to reach for each other with their looks.

Dee Rees

Shooting on film is great because it imparts discipline: What do you need to see so you're not finding it in the camera. When I'm shooting, I have the scene in mind, where I'm going to have certain lines. I learned to overlap and to shoot more than I think I need. That was the learning curve.

Dee Rees

I was going to study business administration at Florida A&M, at the height of Reaganomics.

Dee Rees

A producer has to want you. And if the producer trusts you and asks for your vision, it frees you up so much, not having to explain or fight for every decision. You're allowed to create.

Dee Rees

When I'm on set, I know what I want.

Dee Rees

Knowing what you want is not a shortcoming. Let people deal with their own anxieties.

Dee Rees

I think art breaks down otherness.

Dee Rees

Art makes you see people as individual, unique human beings. Art, in that way, allows us to see each other in particulate, as opposed to in aggregate.

Dee Rees

Both grandfathers fought in different wars. My mother's father fought in World War II, and then my father's father fought in Korea. And they're both these country boys, one from rural Tennessee and one from rural Louisiana - and they never went back home.

Dee Rees

Culture - art, music, literature - is the long game, because it's the way to change people's ideas in a more personal way.

Dee Rees

'Mudbound,' you know, is about home. 'Mudbound' is about what it means to be a citizen, and 'Mudbound,' in fact, is set in this post-reconstruction era that we haven't really explored. You know, not since 'Sounder' have we even really explored that experience.

Dee Rees