All religions have always hated females.

We have more than enough deodorised, over-the-top, sentimental cinema. Let's try to bring a little human intelligence into things. It can be very rewarding.

For 8,000 years, we've had lyric poetry; for 400 years we've had the novel: theatre hands its meaning down in text. Let's find a medium whose total, sole responsibility is the world as seen as a form of visual intelligence. Surely, surely, surely the cinema should be that phenomenon.

Try this experiment: Pick a famous movie - 'Casablanca,' say - and summarize the plot in one sentence. Is that plot you just described the thing you remember most about it? Doubtful. Narrative is a necessary cement, but it disappears from memory.

I was fortunate enough to hook up with Quincy Jones and had a lot of success. But the music of the '80s really changed when the '90s hit. For me to chase that dream or career of music, I started a family, started on 'Melrose Place,' so it was something I didn't have the time or energy.

The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment.

When I took over 'New Mutants,' writing and drawing, and I figure this is a big deal, I'm 23, 22 at that time, and I am nervous because I've had nothing but success. And now they're giving me the entire platform to create. And I figure, if I fall flat on my face here, it's going to hurt. It's going to set me back.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.