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" 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

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" When you have a lot of siblings, you always do something to feel special. "

" 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 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.' "

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

Lee Daniels

Empire

Expected

" 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. "

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

" There are servers, and there are people that are served. There's something contradictory about that in a democracy, certainly. "

" I had trained myself not to go to the bathroom throughout my elementary and junior high school years because I was bullied. And you don't understand why you're being bullied, so you just suppress it. "

" People enjoy making fun of people who are famous; they love putting people down. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" I worked at Warner Bros. for a while. I was the head of the minority talent casting. It was like pre-Spike Lee and post-blaxploitation era. "

" 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

Film

" I think that, as African-Americans, oftentimes we have to put ourselves on pedestals as opposed to really looking at ourselves and trying to understand ourselves and become better people. We always have to be on pedestals. "

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

" As a film director and as film actors, you get used to a certain rhythm that's slow. But with TV, it's hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's a different pace. "

" 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. "

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

" 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

I Am

Perspective

" 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. "

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

" The ratings board is completely different when it comes to film versus the television arena. "

" At 19, I was in the streets making money. I was surviving. "