Taylor Hackford Ray Quotations

Well I don't think I've scored my life exclusively to Ray Charles.

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.' .

Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice.

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.

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.

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,'

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.