Taylor Hackford
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"Taylor Edwin Hackford" is an American film director, and the former president of the Directors Guild of America. He has directed a number of feature films, notably An Officer and a Gentleman and Ray (film)/Ray. He won the 1979 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for Teenage Father.

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I think it speaks to the greatness of the man that he truly gave me the gift of allowing me to tell the story warts and all, ... To be able to see the good, the bad, the light, the dark. And Ray Charles had a substantial dark side.

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When you're working in Hollywood you have these actors who go to their trailers, they're getting paid millions of dollars, they act like spoiled children. They don't really want to work. And the crew knows that. They don't respect them, ... Jamie Foxx is the antithesis of that.

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When Ray Charles is concentrating he's like a piece of granite, nothing twitches, nothing, ... He sat for 25 minutes solid like that, like a stone, and I thought, 'Oh my God, if he doesn't like it I'm dead.' ... And then finally, after 25 minutes he started to talk back to the screen. I heard him say 'That's right. That's the truth.' .

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If you are making a film about a very famous individual you live or die by the person that's going to play the main role, ... In this film I'm in big trouble because everyone knows what Ray Charles looks like. Everyone knows his movements, everyone knows his vocal patterns.

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I trusted my instincts here, but I'm not stupid. The next thing I did was throw him into the shark tank, ... I threw him in with Ray Charles.

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The story of Ray Charles is the world underestimating him. ... Everyone ultimately kept saying [to him] ... you really shouldn't be able to do anything because you're a cripple.

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I had to go to Ray every year and apologize. And he was so wise in his way, he said, 'Taylor, don't worry, it will happen when it's ready to happen,' .

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I heard his story and I thought, 'My God, this is a great subject for a film,' .

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