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" I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated. "
Lee Daniels
Life
People
I Believe
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" I've had all types of beautiful girls tell me that they ugly when they look in the mirror, as if it's someone else's reflection they see. "
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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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Gay
Early
Out
" I think this last film I finished, 'The Butler,' is the closest I will come to as a work-for-hire. "
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Come
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I Think
" I think the father-son love story is a universal one which transcends color. "
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Color
Story
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" I like to show the grey area in all my characters. "
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Characters
Show
" My kids tell me to Instagram, so I do that. I have a few thousand followers. "
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Instagram
Tell
Followers
" Rarely do celebrities and actors speak up for what they believe in. "
Lee Daniels
Up
Speak
Rarely
" 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. "
Lee Daniels
Name
Me
Film
" 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. "
Lee Daniels
Bug
Talents
Two
" My partner, Danny Strong, came to me with this idea of telling a story about my life and merging that with music and the hip-hop world. He wrote 'The Butler' and originally wanted to do 'Empire' also as a movie. "
Lee Daniels
My Life
Music
Me
" 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. "
Lee Daniels
People
Partner
Truth
" I had 'Push' and 'The Paperboy' next to my bed for many years. Those are some of the great, great novels. "
Lee Daniels
Years
Bed
Great
" 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
Try
Never
Story
" 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
Real
Stars
Money
" I wanted to make a black 'Dynasty.' "
Lee Daniels
Make
Dynasty
Black
" 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. "
Lee Daniels
World
African-American
Alone
" I want to see movies I can walk away from and say, 'Wait, what happened there? Hold up, what did I just see? What?' and then it connects to something that you personally, unequivocally know to be truth. "
Lee Daniels
Wait
You
Truth
" My earliest experience was reading Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at 8, you know, with a bunch of kids on my steps - on the stoops - and knowing that I wanted to direct them saying the lines. I don't really know how to articulate that 'cause there wasn't someone to show me. "
Lee Daniels
Me
Reading
Experience
" 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
Tell
I Am
Black
" I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff. "
Lee Daniels
Want
My Soul
Hollywood
" I have a very clear vision, and I come from film, where director is God, so if there's a clash, it's painful. "
Lee Daniels
Director
Painful
Film
" At 19, I was in the streets making money. I was surviving. "
Lee Daniels
Surviving
Making Money
Money
" It's hard for me to accept love. I wish I could lie to you and tell you that it's easy for me, but it's not. "
Lee Daniels
Wish
You
Easy
" '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. "
Lee Daniels
Stronger
Strong
Book
" I'm always more comfortable and in a good place when I'm with friends because I know they trust me. I'm able to get great performances from people who trust me. "
Lee Daniels
Good
Me
People
" I love black women. I live for them. They are everything to me. I'm obsessed with them. They are sophisticated, resilient and smarter than me. "
Lee Daniels
Everything
Live
Love
" I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices. "
Lee Daniels
Look
People
Black
" 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
You
Why
Time
" I've never done a studio movie, let alone worked for a network. Every one of my films has been independently financed. "
Lee Daniels
Never
Movie
Network
" America is fickle. You never know what they're going to go for. "
Lee Daniels
Fickle
Go
Know