Lee Daniels Quotes

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Lee Daniels

Profession : Actor

Birth : December 24, 1959

'Empire' was a very traumatic experience for me. It was very schizophrenic, and it wasn't what I expected it to be.

Lee Daniels

Most of my friends are dead. I watched friends die in my arms at 5, 6, 8. When I grew up, the rest of my friends died of AIDS.

Lee Daniels

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.

Lee Daniels

I come from a family of servants. My father's father was a servant, and my father's father's father was a slave.

Lee Daniels

I have twins that I didn't want to have the life that I had. I didn't have a great life growing up.

Lee Daniels

Most actors want the audience to like them, and that leads to bad acting.

Lee Daniels

Every African-American I know has two faces. There's the face that we have for ourselves and the face we put on for white America for the places we have to get to.

Lee Daniels

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.

Lee Daniels

I went to school at Radnor High School. And I went to a liberal arts college in St. Louis, Missouri, called Lindenwood College.

Lee Daniels

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.

Lee Daniels

With TV, you're in people's houses every night. And you have so much time to tell stories. I don't know why I didn't do it before.

Lee Daniels

When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.

Lee Daniels

I was always intrigued with European cinema, and hated most American cinema. I didn't like the one, two, three - boom! style, with a neat and tidy ending. That was never my scene.

Lee Daniels

When people don't like the film, I can take a bullet. I don't mind you talking about me, but I'm protective of my actors, because they bared their soul for me.

Lee Daniels

Stars make money on real movies. They make big money on real movies. To come into my world, I've got some M&Ms and some potato chips, and I'm asking you to move furniture.

Lee Daniels

I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.

Lee Daniels

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.

Lee Daniels

I believe in life that you know that everything prepares you for the next thing - whether it's a hit, whether it's not a hit, whether it's a... your failures are your accomplishments because it makes you prepared for whatever it is that you are going to do next.

Lee Daniels

I don't know - I haven't seen any of my movies after I finish them. I leave the editing room; I don't go back.

Lee Daniels

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.

Lee Daniels