Lee Daniels

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'm in a great place because I trust people behind the camera as I go off, and I still go back to my day job and do film.

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

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.

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

I come from a family of servants. My father's father was a servant, and my father's father's father was a slave.

Putting on a movie is like going to war - for me, at least. It's all about time; time is money, and we don't have it. So it's all about getting to know each other intimately quickly. You are with family members that you like or don't like, but you can't leave them because you're stuck with them.

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.

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 come from a family of domestics. I think most African-Americans of my age do. They were trusted by their bosses. I have met so many white people that spent more time with their nannies than they have with their own parents.

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.

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