The worst advice Spike Lee ever received
It takes a lot of hard work to make it in the movie business, especially for somebody like Spike Lee, who’s never been the type to take on a paycheque gig for the sake of burnishing his bank balance.
Since making his directorial debut on She’s Gotta Have It in 1986, Lee has gone on to helm another 23 features, but only once has it felt like he was a hired gun. Unfortunately for him, that came on the wholly unnecessary Oldboy remake, which cratered at the box office and signalled that maybe it’s not the best idea for such a singular and incendiary filmmaker to play in somebody else’s sandbox.
Even the overtly commercial stylings of the slick heist thriller Inside Man came packaged as a distinct Lee joint. Still, his dedication to telling his own stories isn’t one every aspiring director needs – or even wants – to follow, especially when so many independent standouts are quickly snapped up by the studio machine and handed the reins on hugely expensive blockbusters only a couple of films deep into their career.
As a result, it makes sense that when Lee shared the worst piece of advice he’d ever been given in an interview with the BBC, it was entirely reflective of his career path. Early on, he was instructed to “make as much money as you can,” and while he’s hardly battling to say above the breadline four decades in, he’s never chased the easiest, most lucrative, or commercially viable projects.
It’s all about retaining autonomy and creative control, but it took him a while to get there. When Lee was building his reputation, he was working with minuscule budgets and shooting guerrilla-style on occasion, causing him to brand the idea of overnight success as a complete, utter, and total fabrication.
“One of the worst lies that’s been told to young people is that there’s a thing called ‘overnight success’. That’s done a lot of damage to people. It’s not like you’re just out there, and the hand of God is going to come down from the heavens and say, ‘You are the next one.’ That is BS,” he said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. There are going to be times where you want to cry, and you want to quit. You can’t quit. You’ve got to keep going.”
Those are words that have shaped his own approach. Even though he can look back at the string of classics he’s directed, the Academy Awards he’s won, and the respect of his peers he’s accumulated as proof that it works and pays huge dividends, he didn’t kick off his career believing that success was guaranteed to happen when he knew full well it needed to be earned.
