Antoine Fuqua

Antoine Fuqua is an American film director, known for his work in the film Training Day as well as The Replacement Killers, Tears of the Sun, King Arthur, Shooter, Brooklyn's Finest, Olympus Has Fallen and The Equalizer.

He has directed music videos for such artists as Arrested Development, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Toni Braxton, Pras Michel and Usher. He was nominated for MTV's Best Rap Video for Heavy D & the Boyz. He also won two Music Video Production Awards: The Young Generators Award, for his work on Coolio's rap video "Gansta Paradise" and the Sinclair Tenebaum Olesiuk and Emanual Award for the trailer to the hit feature film Dangerous Minds (1995). Among his many commercial credits are Wings for Men, Big Star Jeans, Miller Genuine Draft, Reebok, Toyota, Armani and Stanley Tools.

Attended West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia on an athletic scholarship for basketball. He studied electrical engineering (focusing on electromagnetism and signal processing) before moving back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (this move was brief and only to figure out his true calling) and then to New York, New York to work in film.

Antoine Fuqua is an American film director and film producer. His first feature film was the action film The Replacement Killers (1998), starring Chow Yun Fat. He then directed the crime thriller Training Day (2001), for which star Denzel Washington won an Oscar, the action war drama Tears of the Sun (2003), the Arthurian legend film King Arthur (2004), the conspiracy action thriller Shooter (2007), the crime film Brooklyn's Finest (2009), and the action thrillers Olympus Has Fallen (2013), The Equalizer (2014), which pairs Fuqua with Denzel Washington again, and Southpaw (2015) with Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker and Rachel McAdams.

He is perhaps best known for the award-winning film Training Day (2001). Fuqua was scheduled to direct Prisoners (2013), based on a storybook from Aaron Guzikowski, but left the project.

Fuqua also directed The Magnificent Seven (2016), a modern-day remake of the 1960 western of the same name (The Magnificent Seven (1960)) and Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954), on which the western was based.

Trade Mark

• Most of his films contain politically driven elements and themes.
• The main characters secretly hide their past
• Hard characters, hard conflict scene, and hard film setting
• Neutral dark tone
• His movies often feature a shot that is or turns upside-down.

Trivia

• Nephew of Harvey Fuqua(of The Moonglows).
• One of 115 people invited to join AMPAS in 2007.
• Was originally set to direct American Gangster (2007) in 2004 with Denzel Washington and Benicio Del Toro starring, but production was halted one month before shooting after Universal Pictures canceled the film over budget concerns.
• Was offered the chance to direct Man on Fire (2004) but turned it down as he was busy working on King Arthur (2004).

Personal Quotes

• Cinema Paradiso, because it reminds me of why I make movies, the magic of movies, the romance of movies.
• Bruce Willis. Pain in my ass, no problem about that. We just didn't get along. We got along off camera, but shooting we just didn't get along.
• But I like to go to movies with my son because it's still fun; it reminds me of why I make movies.
• Some men don't gel when it comes to work - you have different work ethics, different opinions, different points of views, different methods of filmmaking - and we didn't gel.
• 'Cause movies are human drama, that's it.
• What I learned is, don't forget who you are, because that's what's going to make you a filmmaker.
• I just think you can't shut your life off to just, you know, one thing. You gotta be open-minded. Explore things. Feed your artist.
• I started studying mythology, just on my own. Joseph Campbell, mysticism.
• I became a director just for the love of movies, because of the power of cinema.
• It's not worth it, it's not about money, especially when you're dealing with a culture. It should be about elevating the idea of what we are and who we are as people in the cinema, and that kind of stuff keeps dragging us back down.
• It's a dumb question, because I don't look at things as a black director, just as a director, so ask me as a director first and we can segue into the colour thing later.
• The story is also about the battle between Arthur and the Saxons. The Saxons were destroying everything they came across and Arthur was left when Rome was falling because this movie takes place in 400 A.D.
• It's a hard line to walk, man. Cause you know you want to make this movie, you want to make it dark and real, you want to show all this stuff but unfortunately you can't always do that.
• The simple answer is I'd just be a guy trying to feed my family, like everybody else. The complicated answer is, I think I'd be in some sort of military or government world of some sort.
• So it's hard to be an artist and be true to the reality of the world you want to create and also make it entertaining and successful financially.
• I believe in God, absolutely.
• I like the opportunity to make films.
• I've become friends with Michael Mann and Oliver Stone; I've seen those guys work and that was great to see.
• I like making movies.
• Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.
• I take them seriously but I try not to read them. I take them personally, that's why I don't read them. I think people are lying when they say they don't care, that's not true. I take them personally.
• My experience of test screenings is that you don't know what kind of mood people are going to be in, and sometimes the studios accept what Joe Blo says - and this guy could just be a frustrated filmmaker, or not paying attention.
• I like the platform to show your art and everything that goes along with that. To show your voice and hopefully find films that are more politically driven, films that maybe inspire.
• I only pay to take my son to the movies, because most of the time I only watch European movies, independent movies, or screen them privately. But I like to go to movies with my son because it's still fun; it reminds me of why I make movies.