Lee Daniels Quotes
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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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People enjoy making fun of people who are famous; they love putting people down.
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I was always in trouble. I was mischievous. And movies were always a part of my world.
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If you really spend time with movies, it's three years of your life from beginning to end. I started out planting the seed with 'Monster's Ball' about independent cinema and raising money and that whole thing as a producer, and then it becomes easier for me.
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I like to show the grey area in all my characters.
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I'm a filmmaker. I'm always searching for the truth in everything I do. I demand it from my writing partner and my crew, actors, and so hopefully, we're making people think.
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I have a very clear vision, and I come from film, where director is God, so if there's a clash, it's painful.
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My work is therapeutic: 'Monster's Ball,' 'Woodsman' and 'Shadowboxer,' because I don't go to therapy, and I sort of live life through my films.
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I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.
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Putting on a movie is like going to war - for me, at least. It's all about time; time is money, and we don't have it. So it's all about getting to know each other intimately quickly. You are with family members that you like or don't like, but you can't leave them because you're stuck with them.
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While I am not a musician, I love music. I have over 15,000 songs on my iPod. Everything from hard core rap to the soundtrack from the original 'Cinderella.'
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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 think that, as African-Americans, oftentimes we have to put ourselves on pedestals as opposed to really looking at ourselves and trying to understand ourselves and become better people. We always have to be on pedestals.
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I always question if somebody else is going to love my films. I think that's what art is about - it's so individual.
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I have a partner, Danny Strong; he's an incredible writer and, really, my backbone. So when we don't see eye to eye, it's painful.
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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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Most times when I do a film, it starts out with one idea and ends up not being what I thought it was going to be.
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I think it's very important that we don't sound like militants. Often what we do is we give a comment, and because it comes across with passion, then we're 'angry black people.'
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I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films.
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To come into my world, I've got some M&Ms and some potato chips, and I'm asking you to move furniture. We're making a movie. We're making it like we're putting on a play.
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As a film director and as film actors, you get used to a certain rhythm that's slow. But with TV, it's hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's a different pace.
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I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.
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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 thought I could write. So it was my intention to start off as a writer. But I wasn't really great at delivering the word at the end of the day.