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As a writer, all you want to do is write for great actors. That's all.

My interest as an artist is to illuminate the lives of black folks. I definitely am focused on films that illustrate all that we are and all our nuance and all our complicated beauty and mess, and when you're telling those stories, you gotta have black actors.

I like writing for individuals with really rich musical personalities.

It's often wrong to write for specific actors because one ends up using what is least interesting about them, their mannerisms and habits. I prefer not to write for specific people.

I do enjoy working with writers.

I don't ever write with a particular audience in mind. I just write books that please me.

I have some role models. In Brazil, they are mostly writers. A writer named Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto is my favorite. Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis is also a very important figure for me.

I started out wanting to be an actor and I like to give actors as much as possible. I love writing stuff where they can really lose control.

I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.

I eventually want to do writing on all the films, but not necessarily to be the writer. Writing is a painful, painful thing; it really is.