Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, thanks for pulling up a chair today on
Speaker 1: Table for Two. This is Bruce Bosi and we are
Speaker 1: at the Sunset Tower Hotel, my favorite place in La.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Hey, today we're having lunch with an accomplished director, an
Speaker 1: Academy Award winning movie producer. You might know the epic
Speaker 1: TV series he created called Empire.
Speaker 3: If you're watching.
Speaker 1: Netflix as we go into the Halloween months, you should
Speaker 1: be watching this scary movie called Deliverance, which is based
Speaker 1: on a true story.
Speaker 3: Are we ordering, Yeah, he came by, but we were talking.
Speaker 2: That's what Michael Jackson, who.
Speaker 1: But the most fascinating thing about this gentleman is that
Speaker 1: he came to Hollywood and began his career as a nurse.
Speaker 1: So let's get into that. So sit back, grab a
Speaker 1: glass of rose, and enjoy. We're having lunch today with
Speaker 1: mister Lee Daniels. I'm Bruce Bozsi and this is my
Speaker 1: podcast Table for two.
Speaker 3: Well, if you've pulled.
Speaker 1: Up a chair today, we are having lunch with we
Speaker 1: are We are having lunch with an incredible director, producer,
Speaker 1: Academy Award winner, mister Lee Daniels.
Speaker 3: Welcomely, Thank you, Bruce.
Speaker 4: I'm so happy to be here. Would you like to
Speaker 4: know that? My boyfriend told me you can't, like not
Speaker 4: do you're pressing without talking to Bruce.
Speaker 2: Because he's obsessed.
Speaker 3: Get out.
Speaker 2: I swear to god, he said you can. I was like,
Speaker 2: of course, and I was thinking, of course. I mean,
Speaker 2: and he's very very he's.
Speaker 4: Very very he's forties, very New York times, very into
Speaker 4: the know right well.
Speaker 3: And it's that very good taste because he's with you
Speaker 3: and he loves my show.
Speaker 1: That's really meaningful to me because you sit here and
Speaker 1: you don't know how it resonates with people. Something popped up,
Speaker 1: which was in September ninth, nineteen eighty three, Newsweek had
Speaker 1: a cover that had a vile of blood in it,
Speaker 1: and I was talking about AIDS and the pandemic of
Speaker 1: AIDS and like, if you that's kind of crazy because
Speaker 1: today is September tenth.
Speaker 3: So that's why I kind of popped up, and that pandemic.
Speaker 3: I did not realize that when you came out West,
Speaker 3: you were working in the nursing world.
Speaker 1: You were at first a receptionist and then you opened
Speaker 1: up your own and you were primarily dealing with people
Speaker 1: with HIV AIDS, So like, how did that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I really don't know how it had.
Speaker 4: I just sort of unfolded. I was I was a
Speaker 4: I looked in it. I was living on Hollywood. I
Speaker 4: was living on will Cox and Hollywood Boulevard, and I
Speaker 4: was looking for a job. I just found a roommate.
Speaker 4: And I was homeless for a little bit, and I
Speaker 4: just found a roommate. And I went looking through the
Speaker 4: La Times, and incidentally on Sunset and will Cox, there
Speaker 4: was a nursing agency in the LA Times Classified section
Speaker 4: that was looking for receptionists. And I knew I had
Speaker 4: a good speaking voice, so I went in too to
Speaker 4: meet with them. They hired me on the spot, and
Speaker 4: I went from being a receptionist to selling nurses. I
Speaker 4: knew nothing of knew I know nothing of nursing, selling
Speaker 4: nurses meaning that if your mom is sick, you have
Speaker 4: at your home, meaning that you don't meaning you know.
Speaker 4: And so if you if you're having a baby and
Speaker 4: youeding nanny, or if you need a homemaker or even
Speaker 4: a housekeeper, home health care in any way. And so
Speaker 4: I would sell these people to people that needed our care.
Speaker 4: And and then they elevated me to UH from receptionists
Speaker 4: to salesperson to manager when I was.
Speaker 2: Like twenty three at the time, and I and finally said,
Speaker 2: you know what, I think I can do this on
Speaker 2: my own.
Speaker 3: And so am amcious from the beginning, like what I
Speaker 3: could do? I want to do?
Speaker 2: So twenty four and I'm feel a little cocky.
Speaker 4: I got I'm making eight hundred dollars a week, which
Speaker 4: is a lot of money for me at the time,
Speaker 4: and I and I said, I think I think I
Speaker 4: can do this on my own.
Speaker 3: So I.
Speaker 2: Knew nothing about opening a business at all.
Speaker 4: And I just sort of said, I got my three
Speaker 4: girls that were my solid ace boom Coons said, I'm.
Speaker 2: Getting a script.
Speaker 3: Can you say that again, your.
Speaker 2: Ace boom Coons, Ace boom Boomons, I love that.
Speaker 4: And there were these wonderful black women that just really
Speaker 4: believe in me.
Speaker 2: And part of being a man, the managing it was.
Speaker 4: Knowing that going out to Cedar SINAI, going to Century
Speaker 4: City Hospital, Santa Monica Hospital, and marketing the company, meaning
Speaker 4: that getting with the social workers, because those are the
Speaker 4: people that refer you from the hospital to as discharged planners,
Speaker 4: the ones that are when as you're leaving the hospital,
Speaker 4: they okay, it's call this person, this person, this person
Speaker 4: for nursing care once you leave.
Speaker 2: But all of them were black women, and they all
Speaker 2: like gravitated to me.
Speaker 4: So it says this weird thing that these social workers
Speaker 4: that were all black were love me.
Speaker 3: It doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 4: And then they were like, you got to go to
Speaker 4: this guy, you gotta get so and so and so
Speaker 4: I said I can do this.
Speaker 2: So and so I started with.
Speaker 3: Did you have to get like a degree or like.
Speaker 2: You didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 4: I'm talking taxes all of it, and so.
Speaker 2: And so I started with about three nurses, four nurses.
Speaker 4: And and we had I don't know, I had to
Speaker 4: move out of my house because it was like they
Speaker 4: thought I was running like.
Speaker 2: Some sort of organization there.
Speaker 4: I had moved to Sycamore and Melrose and and so
Speaker 4: I had to move to had My first offices were
Speaker 4: on Wiltshire.
Speaker 2: And Lebrea and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we and so we So I went from four
Speaker 4: nurses to like one hundred and fifty nurses. Holy But
Speaker 4: the reason what happened during that time was was that
Speaker 4: it became sort of like black women sort of flocking
Speaker 4: to me and aids.
Speaker 2: It and nobody and no one knew.
Speaker 4: No one wanted to touch the patient, but my girls would, right,
Speaker 4: and so my girls would go in and then they
Speaker 4: would going and so that and that's really where the
Speaker 4: boom happened for me.
Speaker 2: And then I was like it was out of control.
Speaker 4: And then I was living my own private sort of
Speaker 4: thing while my success with the nursing agency.
Speaker 2: Was coming along, and it.
Speaker 3: You mean, like your own personal life or like it was.
Speaker 4: Crazy, because what happens is that you know, I'd come
Speaker 4: I wasn't rich, so I was homeless, and so what
Speaker 4: do you do with someone that doesn't have an education,
Speaker 4: Your father's gone, You have a lot of money, I mean,
Speaker 4: I was making a.
Speaker 2: Lot of money. I'm making I don't even I can't.
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean I must have sold I sold
Speaker 4: it for a few million, but even then it was
Speaker 4: undervalued at the time.
Speaker 2: So I was making a noise my money. And so
Speaker 2: I did a lot of drugs. And I had a
Speaker 2: lot of friends at.
Speaker 4: The same time that were dying, and so I was
Speaker 4: on my own sort of path of.
Speaker 2: Like why are my friends dying?
Speaker 4: These guys are so much better than me, nicer than me,
Speaker 4: kinder than me, souls that were just like dropping like
Speaker 4: fives and black guys at the time, people think that
Speaker 4: this COVID thing was a thing. Black men were dying
Speaker 4: and garbage trucks were picking them up because the hospitals
Speaker 4: weren't taking them, their parents weren't taking them well, and
Speaker 4: so it was really I don't think that people people
Speaker 4: think like, oh, like, how does he come up with
Speaker 4: these stories?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? They come from a place
Speaker 2: of watching people die in your arms over and over
Speaker 2: and over and over again. I mean, and I don't
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't think people don't you know.
Speaker 1: Now, I will first always say there's those of us
Speaker 1: and we're in the same years of life. The the
Speaker 1: trauma of all of that, I don't think people realize.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a generation of people that just want't here.
Speaker 3: They don't know, but there's the trauma of that. I mean,
Speaker 3: even the reality of saying people were being picked up
Speaker 3: by garbage trucks because they don't want to touch them conceivable, inconceivable.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a civilized, first world country and
Speaker 1: we see.
Speaker 2: Ambulances aren't taking him in, the hospitals aren't taking him in.
Speaker 2: Especially African Americans.
Speaker 4: It was like on another different level, the white boys
Speaker 4: down in West Hollywood were at least I think their
Speaker 4: parents were quasi accepting them. And I think that, but
Speaker 4: the homophobia in the black community was so rampant and
Speaker 4: so like and and so and also you have to understand,
Speaker 4: my dad had convinced me that, you know, being gay
Speaker 4: was a death sentence prior to Aid's ever coming out.
Speaker 4: So I just assumed once he died that this was
Speaker 4: just a fad of complete this was supposed to be.
Speaker 3: When did you get ahead of the drugs?
Speaker 2: Get ahead of the drugs?
Speaker 4: I think, my kids is what sort of did it?
Speaker 4: Because I adopted my brother's children that were that when
Speaker 4: they were like three days old. My partner and I
Speaker 4: Billy Hopkins at the time, the Castle director, my brother
Speaker 4: was going to jail and his he said that he
Speaker 4: called me and I was in po Springs. I'll never
Speaker 4: get I was armed ecstasy or.
Speaker 2: Something or MDA. No no, no, no, it was called No.
Speaker 2: They didn't have malley.
Speaker 4: Then they had lemon lemons, that lemon drop, the lemonslues.
Speaker 3: Cuala, nothing like.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 2: And you don't make them any they don't make them
Speaker 2: any clean.
Speaker 3: We're not promoting drug us.
Speaker 2: We don't do those anymore at all.
Speaker 4: Well, maybe a valium when I have to fly.
Speaker 3: Well that's it, because when I fly to I take isamix.
Speaker 2: I mean it isn't it the same?
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically they both mellow you out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta anyway.
Speaker 4: So I'm in Palm Springs and my boyfriend at the
Speaker 4: time really wanted kids.
Speaker 2: And he lived in New York and I lived in
Speaker 2: l a And and I was.
Speaker 4: Really struggling because I was struggling from a drug perspective.
Speaker 4: The nursing agency had gone, I had gotten into this
Speaker 4: business some kind of way.
Speaker 2: I was lost. My friends were dying or dead. I
Speaker 2: was alone.
Speaker 4: I was with this guy that you know, I liked
Speaker 4: a lot, and he wanted kids and I didn't want kids.
Speaker 2: And my brother called me to say, listen, I'm going
Speaker 2: to jail.
Speaker 4: My girlfriend doesn't want the kids and I need you
Speaker 4: to take them.
Speaker 2: And they were twins. They were coming, and.
Speaker 4: I was like, she was four months and she was
Speaker 4: four months end at the time, and I said, okay,
Speaker 4: bye in church.
Speaker 3: No small ask on that one, but yeah.
Speaker 4: So they arrived in January and my and.
Speaker 2: And sure enough to the day, you know, my.
Speaker 4: Mom called me and and she said that the mother
Speaker 4: had left them on her doorsteps in snow and taken
Speaker 4: off and they were days old, and and she says,
Speaker 4: you are going to come and take these kids, And
Speaker 4: so thank you. In some deep way, I think that
Speaker 4: she understood that I, without knowing it, that something was
Speaker 4: wrong with me, and that because she's so magical and spiritual,
Speaker 4: she knew that these kids were going to save my life.
Speaker 4: So so I said, I'm not taking okay, So but
Speaker 4: my partner said I.
Speaker 2: Really want kids.
Speaker 4: So we took the kids and and I thought, I thought.
Speaker 2: Oh they were also they were drug babies, they were
Speaker 2: just the Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I thought that I was saving them.
Speaker 2: Are you with me? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I am?
Speaker 4: And so I come here, I waiting over to New
Speaker 4: York and you're driving out the Philadelphia and getting the
Speaker 4: kids and Bruce, they they saved your life.
Speaker 3: They saved your life. That's the beauty. Things happen in
Speaker 3: one's life.
Speaker 1: You don't know, it's crazy, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: So you raised them straight.
Speaker 2: Through from three days old, from three days old. You
Speaker 2: want some kids? Is there?
Speaker 3: Twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Table for two after his time in
Speaker 1: nursing our guest. Lee Daniels became a casting director and manager,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious did he always have Hollywood on his mind?
Speaker 3: The beauty is.
Speaker 1: That I always think the paths that open up that
Speaker 1: you know, you don't know.
Speaker 3: So you take a right, you take a left. Here
Speaker 3: you are you create this business? Quesh does this road
Speaker 3: lead to Tedy Daniels. I'm sitting with today.
Speaker 2: So I'm eight years old. I'm in the first time.
Speaker 2: I welcome to the library.
Speaker 4: Okay, I go into the I don't know how, how, why,
Speaker 4: but God took.
Speaker 2: Me into the theater section. I opened a book.
Speaker 4: There's a cover of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton in
Speaker 4: black and white, and the book is.
Speaker 2: Called Who's Afraid of Virginia Book? I'm eight.
Speaker 4: Wow, I opened a book. It's my I'm reading it
Speaker 4: cover to cover. I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker 4: I'm obsessed with it because the words it's like a
Speaker 4: play and this is oh oh.
Speaker 2: Martha says this, George says this, oh oh oh.
Speaker 4: And so I read it as the first book I
Speaker 4: took out of the library.
Speaker 2: I took it home on my stoop.
Speaker 4: I had my neighbors, and my sisters read Honey and
Speaker 4: George and Martha and all and and I said, you're
Speaker 4: not saying it right. And I think, because you know,
Speaker 4: I come from a very large family, and I've seen
Speaker 4: so much. At that age, I understood the nuance of
Speaker 4: what these complicated I understood it. I don't understand how
Speaker 4: I understand about understood.
Speaker 3: The complicated relationships with him. It's yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 1: An incredible that's a that's an incredible first book to
Speaker 1: gravitate to. And you're right, some higher force, the Lord
Speaker 1: what you're like and you ate and can actually understand that.
Speaker 2: I understand and and I'm laughing at it.
Speaker 4: So and then so I start writing myself, and then
Speaker 4: I started doing other things. But there I didn't understand
Speaker 4: what a director or a writer was. It was just
Speaker 4: something that and I wasn't encouraged to do that as
Speaker 4: a kid because my shows and stuff, and no, I.
Speaker 2: Did one play in in sixth grade.
Speaker 4: I was a king and and and I thought I
Speaker 4: understood it a little bit. I was performing, but I
Speaker 4: didn't want to act. I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 4: create and and so and your job what he forget
Speaker 4: it he was like, are you like the idea of
Speaker 4: even writing? I used to hide my journal and I
Speaker 4: used to hide my thought because it was so not
Speaker 4: the thing to do, right.
Speaker 1: And so that's the time we grew up in if
Speaker 1: your parents sniff that you might be aay they You know,
Speaker 1: it was a generation of people that thought by not
Speaker 1: doing it, you could avoid being one.
Speaker 3: One has nothing to do with the other.
Speaker 1: All you're doing is squashing somebody and not letting them
Speaker 1: be individuate and be and self actualized too much later,
Speaker 1: which then leads to, you know, people becoming drug addicts
Speaker 1: or sex addicts. We had, we had to do all
Speaker 1: of our adolescences much later. I think, I know, right, yep,
Speaker 1: you know we couldn't do it at fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 3: You weren't at that time. Now these kids today, I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's okay today? I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just think that I don't know what to make up today. Well,
Speaker 2: the so I am lost the.
Speaker 1: Smartphone thing, I think it was okay for a minute,
Speaker 1: meaning young.
Speaker 3: People were like, yeah, you can have a boyfriend in
Speaker 3: high school.
Speaker 1: You weren't going to get beat up or you weren't
Speaker 1: going to be called like faggota all the time.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, growing up and you know,
Speaker 3: or learn how to hide.
Speaker 1: Because like, one of the things I think that we
Speaker 1: develop is how do you figure out how to disappear
Speaker 1: in a room.
Speaker 3: Full of people?
Speaker 2: So you it's so profound with you know, I just
Speaker 2: got chills.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's a survival thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think not, But then I think the smartphone, right,
Speaker 1: I think the smart.
Speaker 2: I just got chills.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love you.
Speaker 4: The idea of hiding is something that I used to
Speaker 4: in kindergarten.
Speaker 2: I used to hold my I used to hold.
Speaker 4: My peek so I wouldn't go to the bathroom, and
Speaker 4: then I used to run home away.
Speaker 2: From the bullies, just so I could alleviate myself.
Speaker 3: Right, because you knew.
Speaker 2: If I was in that bathroom, I was in trouble.
Speaker 3: You were in trouble.
Speaker 1: So you know, you do an incredible movie, you know
Speaker 1: you do Precious that must be based on these women
Speaker 1: that you were working with, Right.
Speaker 2: It's no, it's based on me. It's based on a
Speaker 2: lot of this on me.
Speaker 4: I under again, like like I understood who's a greater
Speaker 4: Virginia Wolf? When I read the book pushed by sapphire.
Speaker 4: I understood it at its DNA because it was my story,
Speaker 4: even though my dad never sexually abused me. I knew
Speaker 4: what it was like to run from the bullies at
Speaker 4: five and then be bullied home at home, right, so there.
Speaker 3: Was no safe there.
Speaker 2: I wasn't safe anywhere and so and so except with
Speaker 2: my mom and so and so. I understood.
Speaker 4: And then I'd seen so many precious is on my street.
Speaker 4: I understood what beatings meant. I understood what what you know,
Speaker 4: understood it all. I understood the nuance of what that
Speaker 4: girl had gone through, everything, the pain and the beauty
Speaker 4: of her finding herself ultimately, I mean, the only thing.
Speaker 4: And I couldn't understand why it was that I didn't
Speaker 4: have HIV. I was like, I don't understand how come
Speaker 4: I don't have HIV?
Speaker 2: I don't why amn't I have HIV.
Speaker 4: I'm just waiting for it, waiting to get HIV right,
Speaker 4: like like literally going and going into the bad houses
Speaker 4: looking for it, because I'm thinking to myself, it's.
Speaker 2: Just a matter of time. I might as well get hat,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I don't understand that guy
Speaker 2: had a bigger purpose for me.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know completely clearly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that's so for Precious, it was it
Speaker 2: just was something. All of it lives in me.
Speaker 4: I did The Paperboy after that, yeah, all, but Precious
Speaker 4: really really resonated with me.
Speaker 3: I mean it was a knockout of a film. And
Speaker 3: you know, you're casting she was.
Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing, Yeah you.
Speaker 1: Have and you know also was amazing when you've used her,
Speaker 1: I believe twice Mariah Carroy, what's your you.
Speaker 3: Have an affinity for like? And she was very good. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, a social worker.
Speaker 1: You know, it's unrecognizable, right, and then we're like wow, I.
Speaker 4: Mean Ellen Maren was supposed to play the role, oh,
Speaker 4: because I had just directed her in shadow Boxer, my
Speaker 4: director of her debut.
Speaker 2: And but but.
Speaker 4: Helen got a job, a big job, and and bailed.
Speaker 2: So I called, and I can't wait to work for
Speaker 2: Helen again. I love her so much.
Speaker 3: I mean, she's next love, isn't she next love?
Speaker 4: She's such a junie anyway, So and so I said Mariah,
Speaker 4: because I knew Mariah had read two I'm.
Speaker 2: Not allowed to say this BYMN say it because wouldna
Speaker 2: kill me.
Speaker 4: At the time, she had read two books. The Bible
Speaker 4: and pushed by Saffi Wow, and she's, you know, I see,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm calling you out. But that was years ago,
Speaker 4: so we already know you've read any more books with
Speaker 4: them kids and everything. But anyway, she says, I said,
Speaker 4: but I need you to follow instructions.
Speaker 2: I really need for you to de glam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, de glam, and.
Speaker 4: You're gonna have to really disappear. And so and she did.
Speaker 4: She was on time, and she was she did everything,
Speaker 4: and she trusted.
Speaker 2: I think that what you have to.
Speaker 4: I think that people talk about my performances like there's
Speaker 4: a level of trust because I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for it in the moment.
Speaker 4: I don't pretend to come on set to know I'm
Speaker 4: this director that knows guys, I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 4: We're going to be criticized for it because I'm from
Speaker 4: a world that most white critics don't understand.
Speaker 2: So know that already going in that they're not gonna
Speaker 2: get it, but we get it. And so let's just
Speaker 2: let's jump off the clip together.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, the performance is a powerhouse in your movies,
Speaker 1: and I mean look currently on Netflix with Deliverance.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you, like the scary movies.
Speaker 2: Did you see it?
Speaker 3: I did? Scared movies are like, you know, I get
Speaker 3: scared really easy, do you. Yeah? Brian was liken't watch it.
Speaker 3: He's like, you know he does that thing? And I like,
Speaker 3: so here's a movie. How much you love him? Oh
Speaker 3: my god? I love what drew you. First of all,
Speaker 3: it's based on a true story, which freaking me out.
Speaker 1: That house even when it was like emptied, still have
Speaker 1: like bad juju around it, and then they knocked it down.
Speaker 3: On the land.
Speaker 1: What what you're even that project?
Speaker 3: And it's it's very interesting because.
Speaker 1: It's like almost like I thought, even though it's based
Speaker 1: on his things, this this like demon.
Speaker 3: It's also one's own demons. You're being out, you're showing
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, which was hard to do. Yeah,
Speaker 3: talk to me about the lads and the experience and
Speaker 3: it's really good. Good, So thank you sir.
Speaker 2: After Precious they offered me I was a producer.
Speaker 4: Came to Tucker Tuley, my producer from shadow Box when
Speaker 4: my first film, came to me with this and I said, no,
Speaker 4: I don't want to do it. Well I said, yeah,
Speaker 4: I do it, but I was questioning whether or not I
Speaker 4: want to do another story about abuse. But then when
Speaker 4: I gave the the script to my mom, you were.
Speaker 3: Like, no, baby, you.
Speaker 2: Aren't open portal.
Speaker 3: You work.
Speaker 2: You don't work like normal people.
Speaker 4: And and I I, I really believe we believe in that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Jumping on you. Yeah, I didn't. And also I thought
Speaker 2: it was a horror movie.
Speaker 4: Like it was a horror like it was like at
Speaker 4: the time, I looked at it as if it was
Speaker 4: really horror, right, And so I let it sit for
Speaker 4: a long time, and then I just I try to
Speaker 4: do what I think is in the air.
Speaker 2: And I think that and and people think I'm cornying.
Speaker 4: I don't care. I think we were in dark times.
Speaker 4: And I think that act that we're sitting here, even
Speaker 4: in question about Kamala and Trump, that's say, been a
Speaker 4: question mark where the country is divided, says the type
Speaker 4: of times that we really are in.
Speaker 2: And and so.
Speaker 4: I said, I think that this is this is something
Speaker 4: I should I think that it's about finding your life.
Speaker 4: It's not really about horror. It's about finding your life.
Speaker 4: And I'm going to scare you.
Speaker 2: To finding your lies.
Speaker 4: And so that was the intent behind the film and
Speaker 4: why I felt I should do it right, and also
Speaker 4: I wanted to stretch my muscle. I just like, what
Speaker 4: does a Lead Daniels horror movie look like? Remember getting
Speaker 4: in Television's?
Speaker 2: Like what is it?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: I did it because I was scared, Like why do
Speaker 4: I what's a Lee Daniels musical? Like I didn't understand
Speaker 4: what that whole thing were, Like how do how do
Speaker 4: I work with a studio?
Speaker 2: How do I how do what is that all?
Speaker 4: And so if I'm not afraid coming in, I don't
Speaker 4: really want to do And I work from a place
Speaker 4: in fear because I've as a gay kid, I was
Speaker 4: so fearful and some of my best stuff came from fear.
Speaker 2: I mean, so I work best in a place of
Speaker 2: the unknown. Right if any of that yah.
Speaker 3: That that completely makes sense. I mean also yours out
Speaker 3: that it's not a hut, and that's one. But but
Speaker 3: it appears to be like as.
Speaker 1: You tell them, because of the way you shoot it
Speaker 1: and the things that happen, and the and the mystery
Speaker 1: and the noises and the flies and the things, and.
Speaker 3: You know that ship's going down, but then it isn't.
Speaker 1: It's about relationships and it's about your inner Glenn Close
Speaker 1: is pretty next level in his movie too.
Speaker 3: I mean, your whole cast is great. Just she's you know,
Speaker 3: I I love her.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 4: So I wanted to separate my story from their story, right, and.
Speaker 2: As much as I could.
Speaker 4: We had a we had a someone that did deliverances
Speaker 4: on set every day. Okay, so that's someone that really
Speaker 4: did evil cast evil stories.
Speaker 3: Out on day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because weird shit was happening for a pasting, I.
Speaker 3: Didn't want to.
Speaker 2: I wanted to explore.
Speaker 4: I have so many friends that are bi racial, right,
Speaker 4: I wanted to find and I had never seen like
Speaker 4: black people know the Glenn Close character, the Alberta character.
Speaker 4: She's not in the atmosphere of white people.
Speaker 2: Don't know who that is because she's never with white people.
Speaker 2: She's with black people.
Speaker 4: And so for me, I wanted to show two things. One,
Speaker 4: I wanted to show the complications of.
Speaker 2: So many of my biracial friends that have like, what
Speaker 2: is that like to live in that existence?
Speaker 4: How confusing it must be when you have a white
Speaker 4: mother but you are black?
Speaker 2: And what is that? What is that? What the fuck?
Speaker 2: What does that world really really look like? Yeah?
Speaker 4: For a black person with a white mother. But more importantly,
Speaker 4: I wanted to give life to so many because every
Speaker 4: every neighborhood I knew and had in Alberta, right, and
Speaker 4: that was just embraced by black culture that you know,
Speaker 4: had black kids and black earl grandkids and never and
Speaker 4: and nobody ever looked twice at her. And it upsets
Speaker 4: me because so many white critics, I think it's sort
Speaker 4: of a joke or and it's an insult to the
Speaker 4: to the black people are gagging over the film like
Speaker 4: they've never seen anything like it. It's like it's it's
Speaker 4: it's affected people, like it's affected Precious because they see
Speaker 4: people that they've never seen that they see regularly because
Speaker 4: Precious was normal to most black people. Yeah that was norm, right,
Speaker 4: So this is norm and they're seeing it and they're
Speaker 4: just goopedou.
Speaker 2: Paul came up to bout.
Speaker 4: Paul invited me over uh to her his house yesterday
Speaker 4: and it was like, gooped. It's like, you're just like
Speaker 4: you just keep giving us people that we know that
Speaker 4: they don't know, but you're speeding the culture.
Speaker 2: And it made me feel so good.
Speaker 3: I've never seen that, I say, so, you're right. I
Speaker 3: was like, oh wait a minute. Never seen the dynamics
Speaker 3: like that, and it's very powerful.
Speaker 1: I thought, so that's a Billie Daniels sort of horror
Speaker 1: film so to speak. Wait, spiritual, Yeah, it isn't a
Speaker 1: horror film that you're scared at times?
Speaker 3: How often are you writing? Are you constantly writing and rewriting?
Speaker 2: Right now, I'm doing a I'm doing something for FEX.
Speaker 2: They want my version of a procedural.
Speaker 3: What is the lead?
Speaker 2: Dy knows procedurals? So get I'm afraid.
Speaker 3: Wait what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Meaning like a cock show? Like a weekly cop show?
Speaker 4: So what I did was my favorite cop show, complicated
Speaker 4: relationships again with Cagney and Macy.
Speaker 3: I knew about to say that, did you. I knew
Speaker 3: you were about to say it? Love it? Okay?
Speaker 4: So I have Ms Lawrence, who's in every one of
Speaker 4: my TV shows and films. You know, she was Ebany's
Speaker 4: best friend and also Billie Holliday's best friend.
Speaker 2: What would be like if she were a cop?
Speaker 4: A detective dressed like a woman, but dressed like a man,
Speaker 4: but dressed like a woman, look, but is a man?
Speaker 4: Miss Lawrence is a cop detective in Philadelphia and she
Speaker 4: was partnered with another woman who was a Trump supporting,
Speaker 4: homophobic racist, and the two of them had to solve
Speaker 4: crimes together. I had to get along to solve these crimes.
Speaker 4: But they calling each other baggott and just every as
Speaker 4: slur and just everything as they're off solving the crime together.
Speaker 2: What I'm trying to do is bring the world together.
Speaker 2: And so it's my way of bringing the world together through.
Speaker 4: Comedy, through a deep look at race and homophobia in
Speaker 4: America today and bringing the left and the right together.
Speaker 4: No one's listening, So just try how do we how
Speaker 4: do we? How do we do that in a way.
Speaker 4: So that's what that's what I'm trying, That's what I'm
Speaker 4: writing right now.
Speaker 2: I love it so much.
Speaker 3: I gotta tell you that's a brilliant idea. And I
Speaker 3: think you're right. No one is listening to put that
Speaker 3: cop show.
Speaker 1: Put those characters have to solve crime, help people, and
Speaker 1: yet come.
Speaker 3: From too fundamentally different everything.
Speaker 2: But really, let.
Speaker 4: Really give life, sense and life to the racist so
Speaker 4: that they can really felt heard.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yes, And so that the because they're still they still
Speaker 4: with somebody's kid at some point. M So, how do we,
Speaker 4: how do we so Yeah, that's what It's complicated because
Speaker 4: I find myself meeting I needed a white partner. I
Speaker 4: partnered with a guy named part handsOn who did bones
Speaker 4: who really I needed to understand and really feel for
Speaker 4: the racist too, very similarly to what I felt towards
Speaker 4: Monique's character in Precious, you know, I need to feel
Speaker 4: for that person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes her character was power. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 3: you have to feel.
Speaker 2: She's I don't know, definitely, I'm working on Now.
Speaker 3: That's a great So that's that's totally cool.
Speaker 1: I mean so when you're working on that now, so procedural,
Speaker 1: so like when you you have to come up with
Speaker 1: like the first ten, like you have to come up
Speaker 1: with the arc.
Speaker 3: And then we.
Speaker 4: Remember that guy ed Buck here and he was pulling
Speaker 4: over he was the white guy that was.
Speaker 2: I was drubbing all the black boys, the hookers.
Speaker 4: I sort of basic a little bit on that where
Speaker 4: there was there's a serial murderer that's killing gay guys.
Speaker 4: So they need miss Lawrence's character to really go into
Speaker 4: the gay black hooker culture.
Speaker 2: To help solve the crime.
Speaker 4: And that'll be like the first crime be more like
Speaker 4: more like a true crime meets uh true crime meets there,
Speaker 4: cad Nee Lisa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for joining us on table for two. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, Lee Daniels took the leap from
Speaker 1: manager to film director with the movie Monsters Ball. Halle
Speaker 1: Berry won an Oscar for her role in the film,
Speaker 1: and it launched Lee's career as a writer and director
Speaker 1: on both the big and small screens. Let's go back
Speaker 1: a little bit, just because it was so awesome revolutionary
Speaker 1: monsters there.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean maybe you've talked it to death, but
Speaker 3: like no.
Speaker 2: I haven't thought that.
Speaker 4: That's but you understand it was managing at the time.
Speaker 4: And now, okay, so I left things casting. I left
Speaker 4: Warner Brothers was so happy I used to I used
Speaker 4: to be the head of in the eighties. There was
Speaker 4: something called Minority Talent that they created for me. They
Speaker 4: liked my work so much that we created this position. Okay,
Speaker 4: it was called they knew it was a casting director.
Speaker 4: So I was the head of minority Talent. How racist is.
Speaker 3: The coming says stupid?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: I went back to the nursing days where I was like,
Speaker 4: these people need to be we as black people, we
Speaker 4: need to.
Speaker 2: Be We need better jobs, we need better jobs. We need.
Speaker 2: We can't just be drug dealers. We can't just be pimps.
Speaker 4: People don't understand this, but in my lifetime, that's all
Speaker 4: that there was during that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there weren't any lawyers. There weren't any we Rarely.
Speaker 4: Was there a Sydney Potier rarely. Was there a Sidney
Speaker 4: Party or Diane cownt rarely. So it was my mission
Speaker 4: to go out and present black talent. I said, I
Speaker 4: want to leave this. So I decided to start managing talent.
Speaker 4: And and so I, you know, I started managing talent
Speaker 4: and finding them jobs and and and at that point
Speaker 4: I had I knew this game a little bit because
Speaker 4: I was in the system of warners, and so I
Speaker 4: knew how to talk that talk, you know, I was
Speaker 4: in my thirties, and so I knew how to guilt
Speaker 4: because there's a lot of white and there was guilt there,
Speaker 4: but they didn't understand that it was white guilt.
Speaker 2: I said, you can't do this, This is not good.
Speaker 4: How can you have Paula Kelly, who was in Sweet
Speaker 4: Charity Women a boaster place.
Speaker 2: How can you have this woman playing a maid. She's
Speaker 2: smarter than any motherfucker in this room.
Speaker 4: What are you fucking talking about, right, And so thank
Speaker 4: god for many smart casting directors that I was able
Speaker 4: to find people like Paula Kelly and Loretta Devine.
Speaker 2: And people like work.
Speaker 4: And but I wasn't really making me money, you know,
Speaker 4: And I I got really tired of telling black actors
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I can't. I just can't break. I can't break. I can't.
Speaker 4: And so that's when monsters ball came in because I
Speaker 4: started taking on white clients. And when I start taking
Speaker 4: on white clients, that's where the money start coming. Really,
Speaker 4: then white boys make the money, right.
Speaker 2: Wes Bentley.
Speaker 4: Wes Bentley was in a film called I Put him
Speaker 4: in American Beauty and he took Hollywood by storm. And
Speaker 4: I was still directing theater too, and I was directing
Speaker 4: theater little one acts around because it was.
Speaker 2: My passion, you know. And again I didn't understand that.
Speaker 2: I didn't believe him.
Speaker 4: I didn't because my dad between my dad saying that,
Speaker 4: what are you doing in my head? Head? And also
Speaker 4: it just never been right, and also me being gay
Speaker 4: like that was a lot.
Speaker 2: For me to come into the room. I've never not
Speaker 2: been who it is that.
Speaker 4: I am right, and you know, and so it freaks
Speaker 4: a lot of people out that I'm gay and black
Speaker 4: and that was a lot for.
Speaker 2: A lot of people, and a lot for black people,
Speaker 2: a lot from white people.
Speaker 3: Yeah wait right, you know, and so has that gotten
Speaker 3: better because you've become more successful.
Speaker 1: So that's like it comes with success and age.
Speaker 4: I think you know age really Yeah, It's like tomorrow
Speaker 4: is not promised.
Speaker 3: Right, tomorrow is not problem.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy.
Speaker 3: I gotta be happy.
Speaker 4: I've tried to live you know you and I watch you.
Speaker 2: You're so happy. I don't know whether or not you're
Speaker 2: unhappy when you get home, whether you're.
Speaker 3: Unhappy or I'm just.
Speaker 2: No, You're just so happy.
Speaker 4: And so I think that I think that it's hard
Speaker 4: to find happiness, but you have to stay here and
Speaker 4: you're happy because tomorrow is a promise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that is something really to remember. Not
Speaker 3: only is tomorrow or not promise, but eventually you do
Speaker 3: have your last tomorrow. It's just the reality. So like
Speaker 3: not that you want to live with the Albumtross and
Speaker 3: bat around your neck, but the awareness about his frame.
Speaker 1: And I also think age, especially for guys like us
Speaker 1: who grew I think completely different on the one level,
Speaker 1: but it was the first gay pride. I everyone who
Speaker 1: was in nineteen ninety here in LA and I remember
Speaker 1: having growing up in the West West, West Hollywood, the
Speaker 1: Upper East Side of New York City, which all looked
Speaker 1: the same, all white.
Speaker 3: For the most part.
Speaker 1: I think I had one black kid in my class
Speaker 1: and he actually raised his hand one day in an
Speaker 1: assembly and said, because it was pertinent to what was happening,
Speaker 1: and he said, how would you any of you feel if.
Speaker 3: You were me in this room? And it was the
Speaker 3: first time that I thought to myself because oh wow,
Speaker 3: like this, yeah, like how does that feel?
Speaker 1: But that day in nineteen ninety that June, I looked
Speaker 1: around Santa Minchael Boulevard in the Pacific Design Center area
Speaker 1: and saw all these different people and said, oh, this
Speaker 1: is what we have me common and we come in
Speaker 1: all different shapes and size an ethnic backgrounds in black
Speaker 1: and white. It was very powerful to me because if
Speaker 1: you're not exposed to it, and that's what you're doing too,
Speaker 1: is you're through your art, is you're exposing and educating.
Speaker 1: And that's I think, what why why it's so different
Speaker 1: now than when we were younger men.
Speaker 2: You're still a young man now.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean trying to say, like, do
Speaker 1: you feel there was a responsibility as you started to
Speaker 1: become more successful.
Speaker 2: I didn't know. Listen. Part of it is just a
Speaker 2: lot of it is.
Speaker 4: I'm in my thirties, I'm in my forties. It's not
Speaker 4: about I'm greedy. I want I want it now, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not about I don't. I didn't understand that demanding
Speaker 4: that I had as many African Americans around me when
Speaker 4: I was working, I felt a responsibility, not a responsibility,
Speaker 4: but I needed to feel safe. And so it wasn't
Speaker 4: about me thinking about it being politically correct at the time,
Speaker 4: but in hindsight, it was like, you know, making sure
Speaker 4: that I'm not going to be the only one there was. Listen,
Speaker 4: you can't even now today you can only find a
Speaker 4: handful of editors that are African American.
Speaker 2: It's still I have to be able to talk a
Speaker 2: language and feel safe.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've read that it wasn't the easiest for.
Speaker 1: You, but Empire all of a sudden heads and becomes
Speaker 1: this massive cultural thing. And also how you portrayed black
Speaker 1: culture and people, gay people gay.
Speaker 2: To you gay blacks. Yeah, but that was a reason why.
Speaker 2: It was the reason why I did that too, Like
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 4: Tired of being again, I was tired of being like
Speaker 4: disrespected by my peers. You know, there were black directors
Speaker 4: that didn't take me seriously because I was gay, because
Speaker 4: gay men aren't taking seriously.
Speaker 2: And I was embarrassed to walk into a room of
Speaker 2: black people, right, you know. I mean, I am responsible.
Speaker 4: For the first black woman getting an Academy, were responsible
Speaker 4: for the first black writer getting an Academy, and so
Speaker 4: and yet I felt uncomfortable walking into rooms because of
Speaker 4: you know, I just it took me back to yeah,
Speaker 4: kids and like you know, and like men looking at
Speaker 4: you like you know, and women looking at you like
Speaker 4: you know. I was like and and I was like
Speaker 4: fuck that. And so for me, it was important that
Speaker 4: I tell my story. And again, you know, this was
Speaker 4: I didn't understand the the ground that was breaking because
Speaker 4: I was too worried about the art. You know, I
Speaker 4: was worried about you know, the songs that people were
Speaker 4: singing an empire and and the fashion that you know
Speaker 4: that I wanted to make sure that black people were
Speaker 4: really chic, and I wanted to make sure that the
Speaker 4: artists who were discovering new art and that the sets
Speaker 4: were really great, and.
Speaker 2: That we were creating a black dynasty.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, And I wasn't really so I was worried
Speaker 4: about not knowing that the conversation was really changing, that
Speaker 4: it was really that that that it was cracking homophobia
Speaker 4: open in the community.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: And I think the death rat got a lot of
Speaker 4: death threats. And so when the death threats came in, yeah,
Speaker 4: I got.
Speaker 2: Security for the first time. Like, I didn't understand what
Speaker 2: that And Queenlan team was like, maybe you ain't got security.
Speaker 2: I go, no, what's security? Who needs security?
Speaker 4: All of a sudden, I need I need security because
Speaker 4: what were what were people? Because they really couldn't deal
Speaker 4: with two black men kissing two people.
Speaker 2: They just actually put it on the screen. Are you
Speaker 2: kidding me? He has to be stopped because this is
Speaker 2: the devil's work. And so it was. It was terrifying.
Speaker 2: It was really really scary. It was great, it was
Speaker 2: and I didn't understand.
Speaker 4: It that not only were we doing that, but you know,
Speaker 4: boost there weren't any black writers.
Speaker 2: I want you to hear me. There was Shonda Rhimes
Speaker 2: in her world, but.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about motherfuckers that could write from the street.
Speaker 4: They weren't allowed into this system. They weren't never allowed
Speaker 4: into the system. I had to fight for a black
Speaker 4: director to direct the third episode. I directed the first
Speaker 4: two episodes of Empire, and I wanted. I wanted a
Speaker 4: John Singleton got Restless Soul, And he.
Speaker 2: Said, no, he can't do.
Speaker 4: He can't because he's not a he's not directed television.
Speaker 3: I said, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: So the fight.
Speaker 4: That Cia and myself took on to make sure that
Speaker 4: there were writers of color in the again, I guess
Speaker 4: I don't even I don't. It's like I'm so busy
Speaker 4: worried about that, I'm not thinking about the bigger picture.
Speaker 2: Yes, look it, and that paved the way for Black Panther,
Speaker 2: black Ish, Insecure, all of it.
Speaker 4: And so I'm in the center of just trying to
Speaker 4: tell my little story, not even understanding it was as
Speaker 4: big as it was, right, because if I have paid
Speaker 4: attention to as big as it us, I don't think
Speaker 4: I would have crumbled.
Speaker 3: Right well, totally.
Speaker 1: Plus, you can't look macro like you're in it. And
Speaker 1: then when all of a sudden time passes and all
Speaker 1: these shows develop, and then you find yourself that they're
Speaker 1: a writer's room that have black.
Speaker 3: People in it.
Speaker 4: You then go, oh, look what this didn't They didn't
Speaker 4: understand I'm.
Speaker 3: Only twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: I mean that was like yesterday, and they didn't understand.
Speaker 2: I had no saying. I didn't go to school, and
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to navigate when things weren't right,
Speaker 2: and they.
Speaker 4: Kept saying to me, listen, I love my studio. I
Speaker 4: think that they've done so well by.
Speaker 2: Me, and I'm really happy.
Speaker 4: But when they didn't understand the culture and they kept
Speaker 4: telling me, and I had a room full of white
Speaker 4: people telling me what I was supposed to do, and
Speaker 4: I'm literally the only spot in the spot and I'm
Speaker 4: thugging it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's terrible.
Speaker 3: It's terrifying because it also brings you back.
Speaker 1: To being the little boy, the kid, and you don't
Speaker 1: know how to and then you don't feel worthy and.
Speaker 3: You feel like am I doing something wrong?
Speaker 2: And I'm not in love?
Speaker 1: And then you have to figure out how to again.
Speaker 1: As opposed to hiding in a room full of people.
Speaker 3: Now I have to be seen in a roomful of people,
Speaker 3: and how am I going to get there and hold
Speaker 3: my space.
Speaker 4: But thank god, I mean, like you know that I
Speaker 4: was able to I didn't understand the power of it all,
Speaker 4: and I was willing to walk away because I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't care.
Speaker 3: What scares you?
Speaker 4: I think it scares me that just being miss understood,
Speaker 4: people misunderstanding the way, not understanding of baby.
Speaker 2: Who what scratching your head? Because I think we all.
Speaker 3: Want to be loved? I agree.
Speaker 1: I think that's the bottom line is we just want
Speaker 1: to be loved, right, yeah, mister Daniels, Yes, sir, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I don't want you in my life. Friends, I want
Speaker 3: to hang. We can do that.
Speaker 2: I know we can.
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Having me on Baby Okay, have a great day, everyone, welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you for pulling up a chair.
Speaker 1: I love our lunches and never forget the romance of
Speaker 1: a meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a
Speaker 1: friend and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Table
Speaker 1: for Two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio seven
Speaker 1: three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce
Speaker 1: Bosi and Nathan King. Our supervising producer is Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Vincent to Johnny and Cas b Bias.
Speaker 1: Table for two is researched and written by Jack Sullivan.
Speaker 1: Our sound engineers are mil B Klein, Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor,
Speaker 1: and Jesse Funn. Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our
Speaker 1: talent booking is done by Jane Sarkin. Table for two's
Speaker 1: social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special thanks to Amy Sugarman,
Speaker 1: Uni Scherer, Kevin Yvane, Bobby Bauer, Alison Kanter Graber. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.