The Academy (of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences) is really to be commended. It's admirable that voters are recognizing the hip-hop generation and its influence on American culture.

I love all of the arts. I love motion pictures. I love stage. I love theater.

In motion pictures, the actor rules. The camera served the actor.

The art of motion pictures is pictorial and language comes a distant second.

Fact is, awards shows were never really about recognizing achievement. They were a publicity ploy cooked up in the late 1920s by MGM topper Louie Mayer and his newly formed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which was itself, back in the day, nothing but a front organization to discourage unionizing.

I realized what you could do in motion pictures by surrounding yourself with geniuses.