actors-from-los-angeles

"Ladyhawke goes back to when I was living in Paris for a couple of years and making a living translating. I read a lot of medieval literature and was very struck by poet Francois Villon's story of how he had been mistreated by a bishop. That started becoming the story of a little theif who had to go on a quest to redeem himself but was afraid to go on it alone. He needed someone's help, and there would be a price to pay for this. In my mind's eye, I saw a knight with a hawk on his arm, but I didn't know what the knight wanted or why the hawk was there. I first had this idea in 1970, but didn't actually write the screenplay until 1976, and the movie wasn't made until 1983. I wrote Ladyhawke on speculation, without being paid for it. I didn't have an agent, and couldn't get the studios to pay attention to it. When agents did read it, I couldn't find anybody at first who wanted to represent me or the screenplay. When I did finally find an agent, he didn't like Ladyhawke at all and wanted to send it to the Japanese because they did Godzilla movies."

"The space burial sequence now two-thirds of the way into the film was actually menat to be the first scene of the movie. Davidge is found after three years on Fyrine IV, but doesn't initially answer what he did there or how he survived. The story is initially told through flashback because I wanted to set up suspense by slowly uncovering what had happened to him. After the first public testing, Wolfgang decided that it wasn't right. I can see some of it, but I still think that's the best structure for the story. Plus I think they cut more out of the film than they should have. There's some stuff showing his relationship with his three friends aboard the battle station that I wish they would have kept in. I think it created a feeling in the first of the film that carried over to the ending. But I do think that the film has an epic grandeur and enormous emotional intensity to the two characters. That's what I wanted to do most and I think that got to the screen."

"I was happy with parts of the movie, although I thought that Rutger Hauer was a little too civilized for my knight. I had imagined someone more like Jurgen Prochnow."

"The problem ... was that the original novella was not structured for film. It has big gaps in time and essentially starts another story two-thirds of the way through. This is when Davidge takes the young Drac back to Dracon and has to deal with their prejudice against him. We just didn't have the money for that. I had to create a new ending where Zammis is kidnapped by gypsy miners who use Dracs for slave labor. Davidge has to rescue him, and this leads to a new understanding between the two races. There was a good line in the film that got cut out, where Davidge's friends come to help him and run into a party of armed Dracs. The Drac who knows about Davidge and Zammis is about to shoot the friends when one holds his hands up and says "Hold it! I don't understand it completely either, but we're on the same side now!" I also wanted to have a scene at the end where Davidge is shown on Dracon at Zammis' acceptance ceremony. To be officially accepted into Dracon society and become head of your family line, you have to stand before the Council of Elders with your father. He introduces you by reciting your line's entire heritage. That's from the book and I wanted to make that a big scene, but it wound up as a matte painting because that's all there was money for. That's as close to the Drac culture as we could afford to come."

"Before we wrote the screenplay, we tried to get the studios interested in the story. It was turned down everywhere. But again, after the screenplay was done, there was quite a bit of studio interest. We finally went with 20th Century Fox. Then they started having trouble finding a director. Either the ones they wanted weren't available, or wanted to go in such a different direction with the story that they were unacceptable. Finally, Richard Loncrane was hired. The first draft of my screenplay took ten months, which is a very long time. When I started working with Richard, I would fly to London or he would fly here. He had a wonderful, very exciting vision of the film, but at the same time, it might have exceeded what was possible. What you see on the screen today is maybe 75 script pages. The script Loncrane and I started shooting with in Iceland was 140 pages long."

"Take the term ‘liberal’ away from the political left. ‘Liberal’ (like ‘progressive’), implies a reasoned, forward-thinking approach to life. It comes from the same root as ‘liberty’ and doesn’t reflect political leftism. The term liberal should never be applied to an advocate of statism."

"No good ethics requires you to be decent to the indecent."

"People who seek power over others are the weakest people on Earth. That means Washington is populated not by powerful movers and shakers, but by neurotic weaklings."

"Captalism is the system of economic, spiritual, and political liberty that holds free choices as the cornerstone of a good society."

"Money is good. Profit is good. Human thriving is good. Free voluntary exchange is good. None of the above are in conflict with human well-being."

"Monsters and demons are metaphors for the dark side of human nature. The irrational. The fanatical. The animal."

"Villains make heroes possible. They are the obstacles the hero must overcome to achieve his full potential. Just as life’s resistance tests our mettle and enables us to reach our potential."

"Any person who says, outright, that they want to be president, should be automatically disqualified."

"It’s your life! Don’t let the sense that somebody might think you’re absurd crush your joy. Who cares what they think! It's your joy. Embrace it. Embrace it."

"There's no place in a civilized society for mobs, so I'll always stand agaisnt the mobs. Always."

"A rational society and human liberty go hand in hand. Medievalist supersition and moral subjectivism are two sides of the same coin. And both are killing our republic."

"Power does not corrupt. Corrupt people seek power."

"Any country that violates the sovereignty of its own citizens cannot claim the status of a sovereign state."

"That's why it's so important that people like us sit here because we don't agree with a lot of stuff that's going on. That doesn't make us not trans; that doesn't make us not care. I've been doing this work for 30+ years; I have a huge huge love for the trans community. I only want people to have what I have."

"That being said, I don't agree with the narrative today. It doesn't mean I hate trans people, or that I'm against the trans community. It means I have a different way of being. I don't want people to be angry at me; I want to coexist in the world. I don't want, because I'm trans, I get special things, or I get this."

"Our ultimate goal is that we live free and happy, but if we don't be honest about the fact that [we have different opinions]... Which is okay. It doesn't make us have to hate each other."

"Today you can't have a different opinion or you're a Nazi or you're a right-wing or a TERF. I get called transphobic. Could you imagine? I'm an elder in this community and I get called [that]. That's when I knew something's wrong. We are just not solid; we are unhealthy, we are hating on each other, we don't care about each other, we only care if we're all thinking alike. We don't think alike. We never will, and that's the important part of this message as far as I'm concerned. We need to be able to voice our own opinions without us feeling that we're not part of the community."

"I also call myself a transsexual, not transgender. That's also a point of contention. People think that I'm using an outdated word, or that I'm using things that aren't part of the community."

"This is what you need to see; We need to have different voices in this community. We do not agree on many things going on here, and it's important for the world to see that."

"I transitioned to live as a man; I did not transition to be trans. I'm not a trans person. I'm a man, who happens to be a biological woman."

"I had a sex change. Today people are taking on this identity choice of trans, go right ahead. That has nothing to do with what I did, what I want to achieve in the world and what I want people to see me as."

"How about we stop with the stories about how it's open season on black people for racist white cops and talk about the real thing killing young black men? Other young black men. No? Well, that would be part of an honest dialog that everyone is always asking for but runs from when some intellectually honest person, like myself, brings up the crisis of fatherhood in the black community. You know who certainly won't do that? The so-called community leaders."

"I have a simple policy: If the combined age of the two people feuding is over 100, they should move on."

"Once you become a famous famous celebrity, like me, and people start writing about you in the press, you'll notice just how incompetent reporters are. [...] Everyone should have a reporter follow them around and interview them for an article in the newspaper. Then sit back and watch how much stuff is inaccurate."

"RoboCop had less technology on him than your average cop does today. And there are guys jousting at medieval times wearing less armor. But the more we focus on them being racist, the less we focus on them turning into the Terminator. I see a lot of fat cops out there. Much like my idea that for every $100 spent over a $1000 baseline, the bride must be able to fit into her wedding dress for one year. I think all cops should be issued one, and only one, vest on the first day after graduating the academy."

"The constant ingestion of fear about shit that will never happen is ruining our society."

"Damn G, the spot's getting hot/So how the fuck am I supposed to make a knot?/Police looking at niggas through a microscope/In L.A. everybody and they momma sell dope/They trying to stop it/So what the fuck can I do to make a profit?/Catch a flight to St. Louis/That's cool, cause nobody knew us."

"I was told they'd hired somebody for Leonardo and then they fired him. And then they hired another guy and then they fired him, too. So they said, "We're still looking for this guy to do the turtle." I thought, "What the hell does a turtle sound like?""

"Just seeing people getting cancer and dying from it, and me hearing that that's the stuff that we put inside of us is what's causing this cancer… it was my peoples who passed from cancer. I'm asking around like, "Where this cancer s--- coming from?" Everything we eat—the processed food and the stuff they put inside it."

"Wake up and smell the coffee Is your cup half full or empty?"

"You'll never know until you try it You don't have to keep it quiet And I know it makes you nervous But I promise you, it's worth it To show 'em everything you kept inside Don't hide, don't hide Too shy to say, but I hope you stay Don't hide away Come out and play"

"What happens when you populate a movie with a lot of Asian-American people is that they get to be people."

"To us, it was important throughout the writing process that we put things in that were funny, number one, but also that felt like they came from a real place. And the conversations these characters have, reflect on the conversations we have. For us, it didn’t really feel like we were making any commentary or making any stereotypes, it was really us trying."

"I was super-excited to do it, but I still felt a little nervous about it and I felt like my parents would be a good way for me to test if this was OK…They’re immigrants, and they understand what’s going on over there a little better than me…As soon as I brought it up to them, they thought it was hilarious."

"I came into it equipped with these principles because of my Asian-American-studies background, but there was certainly a negotiation that had to take place just for me to get a foot in the door."

"So, on the case of immigration and migration and, you know, this country does not want to go back to the beginning and let's talk about how everyone got here. The thing that upsets me the most is the entitlement of people that will stand with a flag and say to some other people that they need to go back to where they came from. When, in fact, they also would need to go back to where they came from, because you need to go all the way back to the beginning. And if we all had to go back to where we came from, there would be less traffic, and there wouldn't be as many crimes, and we would be living in a place that had a lot of space. I don't think real estate would be as much as it is now, if everybody went back to where they came from."

"It is the freest form of expression, even though people get upset. It is the only place that you can truly have free speech. Politically, you can't. And you skirt around issues. And I think skirting around issues and being politically correct is what's dividing the country, in a sense. You don't want to get to where you're using words that incite. But images and misperceptions, those should always be funny."

"My life has been a privilege. I come from a very humble family. No one in my family was an artist or worked in film…I’m not special. I completely understand that what I did, anyone can do it … I learned to do the things I love to do when I didn’t want to do them."

"Unfortunately, I haven't seen any reaction from the Latino community in regards to the thousands of people who are being detained and the children who are not with their parents…I think the Latino community has a bigger issue of — we go silent, no voice, no change…We didn't vote very much. We need to start realizing that our vote is as important as any other American in the United States."

"It is a very physically and mentally torturous process. It goes 18-20 hours a day, and if you’re stoned during that whole period, you’re not going to make a good movie, because you just won’t have the stamina to physically and mentally do that. And it’s every day. So we didn’t get stoned making the record, never stoned on stage. But we were very disciplined artists about what we were doing. It didn’t magically happen. Well, it did magically happen, but not without effort."

"Fight against typecasting? All the time. There’s a truth in the stereotype, that’s why it becomes a stereotype but the problem starts when it’s the only thing you see. When it comes to Latinos in the US, the truth is they [Americans] know very little about us."

"Right when I was born. I was born and my uncle looked in the crib and I was this curled-up little baby and he says, "Oh, he looks like a little chicharron." The chicharron is a deep-fried pig skin, you know? And I looked like this little curlycue, like a curly fry. And he said, "Oh, he looks like a little chicharron." So that became my family name, Chicharron. And that got shortened to Cheech…"

"We must stop using the word “race” as a cultural determinant and start using it for what it really is. It is a unifying word. There’s no two ways around it. The Caucasian people will have to accept the fact that the changes of diversity on the planet are constant, and that we propagate ourselves at a higher rate. So as far as I’m concerned, people, come to terms with it. You want to really understand the future? You’re going to have to understand that there’s only one race, and that’s the human race. Period."

"The stereotypical usage of any culture, any ethnicity, is based on fact or truth. The difficulty is that that’s the only fact and truth that they use. So therefore, it becomes, “Oh, everyone’s like that,” and everyone isn’t like that. Stereotypes are stereotypes. They’re just one-dimensional characterizations of what the person who’s depicted represents, and that’s the difficulty of what I learned as I moved older into the late ‘50s, early ‘60s, and I was 13, 14…"

"It is very much like Chicano art..It is sophisticated and primitive simultaneously. The scenes would play out and ... the comedy would be absorbed rather than having it jammed down [your throat]."