There are at least two things that Lee Daniels is really good at. The first is making movies and TV shows that people love, including \u201cMonster\u2019s Call,\u201d \u201cPrecious,\u201d \u201cThe Butler\u201d and \u201cEmpire.\u201d
On the set of what he hopes becomes his newest hit, the TV show \u201cStar,\u201d Daniels ricochets from the set to the costume department to a meeting about music.
Music is a big part of \u201cStar,\u201d a series about a racially-diverse aspiring girl group. The inspiration? The Broadway musical \u201cDreamgirls.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ll never forget stealing my mom\u2019s El Dorado and driving from Philadelphia at 17 into New York City and sneaking in to see the show, and just how it changed my life,\u201d he told Rocca. \u201cBut it\u2019s not really about \u2018Dreamgirls.\u2019 It\u2019s about my life when I first came to Hollywood, the desperation and finding myself, understanding what it was that I wanted.\u201d
An even earlier formative experience in Daniels\u2019 life helped inspire his hit series \u201cEmpire.\u201d Rocca asked, \u201cIs it exactly what happened, that your father took you when you came down wearing your mother\u2019s high heels and put you in a trashcan?\u201d
\u201cYes.\u201d
\u201cDo you think your father was just reacting to effeminacy? Or do you think your father was reacting to, \u2018Uh-oh, I know what this means for him later on\u2019?\u201d
Lee Daniels.
\u201cBoth,\u201d Daniels replied. \u201cBecause I think that he as a man was embarrassed to have a gay [son]. I had no questions, I had no problems rather, letting him know, \u2018This is how I felt\u2019 at an early age. I was very outspoken. I owned who it was that I was.\u201d
Daniels\u2019 father was a Philadelphia police officer.
How? \u201cVerbally. Physically. He was embarrassed and ashamed. I think in hindsight, he was just more concerned about my future. And so I think that in some strange way his telling me that I was nothing inspired me to be something.\u201d
When Daniels was 15, his father was killed during a holdup. His mother — with five children to support — convinced a neighbor to help her eldest son attend an elite suburban high school.
Daniels said, \u201cI remember going into that environment and being the only black person, and feeling love and feeling like there was absolutely no racism at all for me.\u201d
\u201cDid you make friends fast?\u201d Rocca asked.
Lee Daniels directs Helen Mirren in his first feature film, the 2005 crime drama \u201cShadowboxer.\u201d
\u201cOh yeah. I learned to go seamlessly through a black environment to a white environment and to adapt to both. And I think that helped me with my journey, that I was very comfortable in both places.\u201d
The experience gave him the confidence, he said, to move at age 21 to Los Angeles, where he worked as a receptionist at an agency for home health aides. Soon enough he opened his own successful agency.
But\u2026
But what Daniels REALLY wanted was to make movies. So he started at the bottom as a production assistant on the movie \u201cPurple Rain.\u201d
He told Rocca he showed up on the set in an Armani suit, driving a Porsche, smoking a Newport cigarette.
He wasn\u2019t a P. A. for long.
His winning combination of talent, smarts and startling self-assurance propelled him. By age 41, Daniels produced \u201cMonster\u2019s Ball,\u201d which won Halle Berry an Oscar.
A Harlem Teenager Strives to Overcome Abuse, Incest and Illiteracy in This Harrowing Drama
As the director of \u201cPrecious,\u201d Daniels earned his own Oscar nomination for getting raw performances from a cast that included a certain diva almost unrecognizable as a social worker.
How, Rocca asked, did he get Mariah Carey to take off her makeup? \u201cCarefully!\u201d Daniels laughed. \u201cI\u2019m a snake charmer. I mean, carefully. Nice and easy. Easy does it.\u201d
\u201cWhat\u2019s that mean? Was it a hazardous situation?\u201d
No, he doesn\u2019t hold back \u2026 which brings us to the second thing Lee Daniels is very good at:
\u201cI gotta tell you, for the record, I\u2019m bored with Hollywood people of color saying Hollywood owes you something. Don\u2019t nobody owe you nothing.\u201d
\u2026 provoking and often outraging people with his unalloyed candor, especially on the topic of race.
Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton in \u201cMonster\u2019s Ball.\u201d
\u201cI had to fight for everything, from my very first movie on.\u201d
\u201cYou raised the money for \u2018Monster\u2019s Ball,\u2019\u201d Rocca said.
\u201cAt last year\u2019s Oscars, when there were no black nominees for any of the acting awards, how did you feel?\u201d
\u201cHow did I feel? I don\u2019t know that there was anything that was deserving to be nominated. Was there?
\u201cI don\u2019t vote on color. I vote on the movies that deserve to be nominated. You don\u2019t see me running around complaining \u2018cause I didn\u2019t get nothing for \u2018The Butler.\u2019 You know what? Next. I went on and made \u2018Empire,\u2019\u201d he laughed. \u201cI mean, like, you know, see ya!\u201d
Lee Daniels at his home in New York City.
From a fur-lined hammock in his New York City apartment, the 57 year-old Daniels presides over an empire he hopes continues to expand.
\u201cDo I think that there are injustices in Hollywood every day, as they are in America? Yes, there are,\u201d he said. \u201cNot just injustices, but there are atrocities, I believe, that have happened. But is that going to define me? No. And am I gonna get what\u2019s mine? You better believe it, I am! And I will continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

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