Lee Daniels

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

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 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 moved on to a nursing agency as a receptionist just to get a job, and ended up managing it, which led to me opening my own - say your mom is sick and needs someone to help her, then you call something like what I had: a home health agency.

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

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

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.

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

I went back-to-back from 'Paperboy' to 'Butler,' literally with no break.

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.

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.

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