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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. "

Lee Daniels

Furniture

You

World

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" I wanted to make a black 'Dynasty.' "

" I've never done a studio movie, let alone worked for a network. Every one of my films has been independently financed. "

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

" 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

" 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 don't profess to be Shonda Rhimes by any stretch of the imagination, or Dick Wolf. They're icons. I'm a filmmaker. "

" I look at my movies; I call my movies 'the kid.' It's like I'm giving birth. I'm in the cocoon, you know? "

" 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.' "

" 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

" I love actors, and I'm very protective of them. I trust them. It's a mutual trust. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

Lee Daniels

Money

End

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

" 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. "

" When you're paying everybody nothing, I mean, they have homes to pay for. And my movies are like putting on theater. Nicole Kidman is at craft services, and John Cusack is moving furniture; there are no egos. The only ego is the story. "

" 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

People

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

" My mission is to let black kids know that their dreams can happen. "

" 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

Reading

Experience

" I want to go to places that are unexpected of me because people really think they have me pegged. "

" 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. "

" What attracts me to material are characters that I know - characters that I know people don't know but I know - and bringing them to the screen. Spotlighting voices that have not been heard before on screen. "

Lee Daniels

Before

Been

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

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

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

" I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films. "

Lee Daniels

Hands-On

Because

" Theater was always in the backdrop. Nursing was a way to pay the bills. I wasn't a nurse; I had a nursing agency. "

" 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. "

Lee Daniels

Love

Believe

" I have a very clear vision, and I come from film, where director is God, so if there's a clash, it's painful. "