He gives his actors room and keeps them as calm as he can, because it's easier to speak with them when they're calm. A director has to keep the actor… - Norman Jewison

The famous slap, where [Virgil] Tibbs retaliates against a racist landowner, wasn't improvised, though, as has been suggested. I kept telling [Sidney] Poitier that Tibbs was a sophisticated detective, not used to being pushed around. I showed him how to do the slap. "Don't hit him on the ear," I said. "I want you to really give him a crack on the fatty side of his cheek." I told him to practise on me. A black man had never slapped a white man back in an American film. We broke that taboo.

So many aspects of our life have disappeared from movie screens [...] And they're now appearing on cable.

For me, films are about ideas [...] Every director should ask himself, 'Why am I making this picture?' And if you can't answer that, you shouldn't make it.