Lee Daniels Quotes
Top 71 wise famous quotes and sayings by Lee Daniels
Lee Daniels Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Lee Daniels on Wise Famous Quotes.
I believe strongly that characters are five-dimensional, and they're complicated, and life is complicated, and people are complicated.
I don't read the reviews, the blogs, or anything else. Instead, I feel the audience when I show the film.
I started casting. I cast music videos, but I kept getting fired from jobs because I was iconoclastic in my ways of casting.
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.
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.
I thought I could write. So it was my intention to start off as a writer. But I wasn't really great at delivering the word at the end of the day.
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.
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 don't profess to be Shonda Rhimes by any stretch of the imagination, or Dick Wolf. They're icons. I'm a filmmaker.
There are servers, and there are people that are served. There's something contradictory about that in a democracy, certainly.
I can't do movies where you start thinking "Where's the commercial appeal? How are we going to market this?" It's not that kind of party.
I've never done a studio movie, let alone worked for a network. Every one of my films has been independently financed.
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.
I have a very clear vision, and I come from film, where director is God, so if there's a clash, it's painful.
I like all my work equally. I look at the projects as children. I look at the experience more than the end result.
Some of the most provocative TV that I'm inspired by is in the U.K. You guys take it for granted, but in America, we can't do it.
I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices.
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 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 had 'Push' and 'The Paperboy' next to my bed for many years. Those are some of the great, great novels.
When I was young, I went to a church where the lighter-skinned you were, the closer you sat to the altar.
My dad was a cop. My mom worked at various jobs - she worked as a homemaker, a bank teller, a bartender.
I have a partner, Danny Strong; he's an incredible writer and, really, my backbone. So when we don't see eye to eye, it's painful.
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 went to school at Radnor High School. And I went to a liberal arts college in St. Louis, Missouri, called Lindenwood College.
Most times when I do a film, it starts out with one idea and ends up not being what I thought it was going to be.
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.
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.
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 come from a family of servants. My father's father was a servant, and my father's father's father was a slave.
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.
I was the oldest of five children, each about a year apart, and my mother, bless her heart, had her hands full.
Theater was always in the backdrop. Nursing was a way to pay the bills. I wasn't a nurse; I had a nursing agency.
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.