| skos:altLabel | - Casey
- Bernie [Casey]
- Bernie [Casey]], the film's star], who wanted to direct it, and campaigned for him with Gene, and he said: \"I don't want to take a chance on someone who hasn't directed.\" So he wasn't going to make the picture, and at that point there was a lot of crew and cast involved, and they were friends, so I said: \"Okay, I'll do it.\" There was a great deal of improvisation by the actors, who were bringing me dialogue from the African-American community, and it really worked. Growing up in a racially mixed neighborhood, like I did in Baldwin Hills, I knew a little bit about the culture, but the actors brought so much in terms of dialogue and honesty ... The Colonial Motel up on Sunset worked beautifully for us, and we also shot at a funeral home in southwest L.A., we shot all over there, with a crazy police escort holding traffic on every location. And between locations I'd get in a squad car with these crazy cops and drive 150 mph to the next location, I thought: \"God, Roger would be so thrilled with that, that's the way to travel.\" And I'm so glad we were able to shoot in the Watts Towers, right down there at 103rd.</blockquote>
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