Lee Daniels Quotes
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There are servers, and there are people that are served. There's something contradictory about that in a democracy, certainly.
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I drank from colored water fountains and from the white water fountain just to see what it was like when I was a kid. What shocks me is that these kids today don't realize that this happened in many of our lifetimes.
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Most actors want the audience to like them, and that leads to bad acting.
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I want to live in my truth. Tell me you don't like me, and I know it. But when you don't tell me, and you work behind my back, it's a lie, and I don't know how to fight that.
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My mom had five kids. And she came home after working three jobs, and I'd rub her feet. We'd all rub her feet. We were lucky to get any time with her.
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That's the gift 'Precious' has given me. You really think you're telling a story about a fat black girl, and only fat black girls will understand it, and then you realize we're all Precious.
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When you're paying everybody nothing, I mean, they have homes to pay for. And my movies are like putting on theater. Nicole Kidman is at craft services, and John Cusack is moving furniture; there are no egos. The only ego is the story.
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I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices.
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My mom knew early on that I was gay, and she knew that I had to get out of the ghetto.
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'Precious' is so not P.C. What I learned from doing the film is that even though I am black, I'm prejudiced. I'm prejudiced against people who are darker than me.
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I want to learn. I want to stretch my muscles as a director and work under different circumstances.
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Here's the thing: I think the media underestimates the intelligence of the moviegoer. We need to be fulfilled. People want to sit down and think, and I try to make people think.
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I'm not going to be labeled a black filmmaker. I am not here to just tell black stories. I'm here to tell all kinds of stories, musicals and dramas.
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I come from a family of domestics. I think most African-Americans of my age do. They were trusted by their bosses. I have met so many white people that spent more time with their nannies than they have with their own parents.
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I don't know what gives me more pleasure: watching my story unfold or going in and watching a room full of black people talking for me and writing words for black people.
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I didn't have the sensibilities of your ordinary filmmaker, let alone your ordinary African-American filmmaker. My heroes were John Waters, Pedro Almodovar, and actors that were part of that world.
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I don't know whether everybody likes the films that I do. I know that I love them, and I believe the way that I raise my kids that they will love them, and that's what most important to me.
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I went from off-off Broadway. I would direct plays in Baldwin Hills. Almost Tyler Perry-like, really trying to express myself in that and not really knowing how to, knowing acting in story, but not really knowing how to technically hold a camera.
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I definitely caught the acting bug, but that lasted for about two seconds when I found my way to L.A. and found that my talents were better suited behind the cameras.
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I see the world from a very specific perspective. It is how I grew up. It is what I am proud of, and I vocalize it. And for those who have not experienced my experience, it is odd, and it's not mainstream.
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I'm not Tyler Perry. I'm not Dino De Laurentis. I think it's a bit much to put one's name in front of the film. It makes me uncomfortable.
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'Push' had a story, 'The Paperboy' story you could just throw up in the air and shoot holes through the book because the story wasn't as strong. But I felt the characters were stronger in 'The Paperboy'; they were vivid.
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People enjoy making fun of people who are famous; they love putting people down.
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I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.