Lee Daniels

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.

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

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.

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.

Shadowboxer' was based on my life.

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.

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

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

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

I don't know what gives me more pleasure: watching my story unfold or going in and watching a room full of black people talking for me and writing words for black people.

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.