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 think it takes a lot of courage to be able to direct a film. If you have that courage and that vision together, and you pick the cast that you believe will achieve your vision, you win.
A lot of those old ideas are dying with the people who created them, and there's this new generation of filmmaker that's saying, "We're in this together, these are issues that we all deal with, let's just present issues to screen without bias and figure out what the audience has to say about them."
I want young people to ask me if I'm serious. Our young people have been lied to and misled for so long. When I stand on this soapbox, I want young people to ask me that because once they know I'm serious, they'll be willing to ride with me.
I need to take toward a lot of things that will refine me and make me better suited for leading anyone out of any place of injustice to a place of justice.
When an artist becomes complacent, he dies.
I prefer to make movies which not only have a message for "then" but a message for "now."
And when I say dominate, I just mean work harder than anyone else could possibly work at it.
Every day I'm reassessing what I've been taught against what I see, and the man I need to be if I'm going to call myself a leader of anybody.
Sadly, black people disassociate ourselves from the things which make us who we are, identifying them as lesser, or inferior. It's a form of self hate.
I think it's like the '60s - we're going to see another revolution in film where these new filmmakers stand up and take ownership of what film is and mould it into what they want.
My mother always tells me, "Fear isn't from God," and I believe that. But sometimes, I wonder whether I'll be able step into the shoes that God has prepared for me.
I recognize as a man there's a lot of things that I don't have to think about. But I'm thinking about them now.
Trying to convince someone that they are a racist or they have White Privilege - if it's in the air they breathe and the culture supports them, sometimes they never have to think about it at all.
All I can do is seek the information that'll make me stronger, that'll help me overcome my toxic masculinity, my male privilege, because that's something you never think about.