Nate Parker
Nate Parker
Nate Parkeris an American actor, director, producer, writer and musical performer who has appeared in Beyond the Lights, Red Tails, The Secret Life of Bees, The Great Debaters, Arbitrage, Non-Stop, Felon and Pride. He was an All-American wrestler at both Great Bridge High School and the University of Oklahoma. Parker has been active in charitable work, donating his time both as a volunteer wrestling coach and a political activist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth18 November 1979
CityNorfolk, VA
CountryUnited States of America
I'm a work in progress. I'm trying to be better.
I got work to do. I got a lot of work to do within myself.
When you're in a relationship with someone you have to be in control of that relationship and you have to be as open as you can about everything, straight up, out the gate.
Being a woman in 2016 if very different, imagine being a woman 20 years ago, and when we talk about consent, maybe 20 years from now we'll know things about consent and examine it from a different perspective than we are now.
You can be addicted to White Supremacy and all of the benefits, you can be addicted to male privilege and all of the benefits that comes from it. It's like someone pointing at you and you have a stain on your shirt and you don't even know it.
At 19, if a woman said no, no meant no. If she didn't say anything and she was open, and she was down, it was like how far can I go? If I touch her breast and she's down for me to touch her breast, cool. If I touch her lower, and she's down and she's not stopping me, cool. I'm going to kiss her or whatever. It was simply if a woman said no or pushed you away that was non-consent.
For the women out there that I've hurt with my male privilege, I'm sorry.
If a director, I believe, has vision and knows so clearly what they want, then you can have a film that can perform. Whereas you can have done 50 movies, but if you're unsure this time, your movie may not turn out.
Sometimes little things can prolong an experience in a way that you run over budget. It's very scientific; a lot of people don't understand the science that goes behind making a film.
I believe in hiring people to do their jobs.I want to hire an editor.They say you make a movie three times: when you write it, when you direct it, and when you edit it. So I have three shots to get it right!
It's therapy. [people] say true healing requires honest confrontation, and that can be seen on a macro scale with America and the things that have been swept under the rug, whether it be with the native Americans or slavery, or whatever holocaust that's happened on this soil.
How many films are there about friendships between teenagers? And how many projects are there dealing with friendships among adults? True friendships - really dealing with the intimacy behind what happened then, and how long you've known each other, and the wounds that haven't healed. That's what [About Alex] film is about.
Far too often scripts are being written with race in mind, but the subject matter doesn't lend itself to any conversation on race. I applaud Jesse [Zwick] for having the courage to say, this [About Alex] just a story about friends, and they could be anyone. There's no specific color that forces a relationship to be discussed in any other manner.
When I think about 1999, I think about being a 19-year-old kid, and I think about my attitude and behavior just toward women with respect objectifying them.