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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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" 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

Life

Work

Live

" 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. "

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

" 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

Talking

People

" 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. "

" I was always in trouble. I was mischievous. And movies were always a part of my world. "

" 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.' "

" '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. "

" I'm in a great place because I trust people behind the camera as I go off, and I still go back to my day job and do film. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Lee Daniels

Fight

Lie

" 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. "

" I was the oldest of five children, each about a year apart, and my mother, bless her heart, had her hands full. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated. "

" Some of my friends don't have a cell phone. Patti LaBelle doesn't have a cell phone. "

" My dad was a cop. My mom worked at various jobs - she worked as a homemaker, a bank teller, a bartender. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I had 'Push' and 'The Paperboy' next to my bed for many years. Those are some of the great, great novels. "

" 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. "

" I started casting. I cast music videos, but I kept getting fired from jobs because I was iconoclastic in my ways of casting. "

" 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. "

Lee Daniels

White

Fountain

" I like to show the grey area in all my characters. "

" My kids tell me to Instagram, so I do that. I have a few thousand followers. "

" I always question if somebody else is going to love my films. I think that's what art is about - it's so individual. "

" I think the father-son love story is a universal one which transcends color. "

" 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. "

" The rules are: The only ego is the film, and you have to serve the film. "