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The beautifully composed imagery of '12 Years a Slave' underscores the savagery of its subject, which is an American South not of knights and ladies but obscene values and a grotesque pageantry, every gorgeous shot of the languid landscape radiating toxicity like a hyperlush blossom that's poison to the touch.

The set of '12 Years a Slave' was an extremely joyous one! We all recognized that we were making a powerful, necessary and beautiful film, and we weren't about doing it without that sense of responsibility, and we recognized that we needed each other to tell this story. We also knew we needed to hold each other up as we told the story.

I didn't know that '12 Years a Slave' was being filmed at the same time we were making 'The Retrieval.'

You look at the part in '12 Years A Slave,' you finish that script - I mean, it's a powerful story. You go, 'Man, I have to play a bad character in this.' And then you go, 'Well, do I want to play a bad character and contribute to a good story?'

The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads in the Civil War and justified it.

The abolition of slavery was driven by the King James Bible. It gave slaves a common language and purpose.

There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power.

Too often a story is examined through biased eyes, without a sensitivity for everyone who forged it. It's seen from the point of view of the great white savior, and rarely is the perspective of the slave a part.