WEBVTT - Lee Daniels 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:08.160 Hey, everybody, thanks for pulling up a chair today on 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:10.920 Table for Two. This is Bruce Bosi and we are 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:15.360 at the Sunset Tower Hotel, my favorite place in La. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:16.600 Hello. 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:23.000 Hey, today we're having lunch with an accomplished director, an 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:27.480 Academy Award winning movie producer. You might know the epic 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:29.960 TV series he created called Empire. 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:31.520 If you're watching. 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.200 Netflix as we go into the Halloween months, you should 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:39.479 be watching this scary movie called Deliverance, which is based 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:40.400 on a true story. 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.200 Are we ordering, Yeah, he came by, but we were talking. 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.000 That's what Michael Jackson, who. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.680 But the most fascinating thing about this gentleman is that 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.000 he came to Hollywood and began his career as a nurse. 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.320 So let's get into that. So sit back, grab a 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.240 glass of rose, and enjoy. We're having lunch today with 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.880 mister Lee Daniels. I'm Bruce Bozsi and this is my 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:15.760 podcast Table for two. 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:25.240 Well, if you've pulled. 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.160 Up a chair today, we are having lunch with we 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.039 are We are having lunch with an incredible director, producer, 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.720 Academy Award winner, mister Lee Daniels. 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:36.240 Welcomely, Thank you, Bruce. 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.440 I'm so happy to be here. Would you like to 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:43.440 know that? My boyfriend told me you can't, like not 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:48.560 do you're pressing without talking to Bruce. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:49.559 Because he's obsessed. 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:50.320 Get out. 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.560 I swear to god, he said you can. I was like, 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.440 of course, and I was thinking, of course. I mean, 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:58.000 and he's very very he's. 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:02.400 Very very he's forties, very New York times, very into 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.000 the know right well. 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:06.440 And it's that very good taste because he's with you 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:07.559 and he loves my show. 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.679 That's really meaningful to me because you sit here and 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.720 you don't know how it resonates with people. Something popped up, 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.800 which was in September ninth, nineteen eighty three, Newsweek had 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.040 a cover that had a vile of blood in it, 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.000 and I was talking about AIDS and the pandemic of 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.160 AIDS and like, if you that's kind of crazy because 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:30.760 today is September tenth. 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.560 So that's why I kind of popped up, and that pandemic. 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.520 I did not realize that when you came out West, 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:40.280 you were working in the nursing world. 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.760 You were at first a receptionist and then you opened 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:49.200 up your own and you were primarily dealing with people 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:51.720 with HIV AIDS, So like, how did that. 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:52.760 I don't know. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:54.200 I really don't know how it had. 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.400 I just sort of unfolded. I was I was a 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.600 I looked in it. I was living on Hollywood. I 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:04.680 was living on will Cox and Hollywood Boulevard, and I 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.160 was looking for a job. I just found a roommate. 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:08.880 And I was homeless for a little bit, and I 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.440 just found a roommate. And I went looking through the 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.240 La Times, and incidentally on Sunset and will Cox, there 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.360 was a nursing agency in the LA Times Classified section 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.000 that was looking for receptionists. And I knew I had 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.000 a good speaking voice, so I went in too to 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:29.880 meet with them. They hired me on the spot, and 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.359 I went from being a receptionist to selling nurses. I 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.640 knew nothing of knew I know nothing of nursing, selling 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.800 nurses meaning that if your mom is sick, you have 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.440 at your home, meaning that you don't meaning you know. 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.400 And so if you if you're having a baby and 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.040 youeding nanny, or if you need a homemaker or even 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.640 a housekeeper, home health care in any way. And so 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:03.560 I would sell these people to people that needed our care. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:09.400 And and then they elevated me to UH from receptionists 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.240 to salesperson to manager when I was. 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.200 Like twenty three at the time, and I and finally said, 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.159 you know what, I think I can do this on 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:17.560 my own. 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:24.840 And so am amcious from the beginning, like what I 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:25.640 could do? I want to do? 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:28.160 So twenty four and I'm feel a little cocky. 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.000 I got I'm making eight hundred dollars a week, which 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:31.840 is a lot of money for me at the time, 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:34.240 and I and I said, I think I think I 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:35.040 can do this on my own. 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:35.279 So I. 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:38.560 Knew nothing about opening a business at all. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.359 And I just sort of said, I got my three 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:46.800 girls that were my solid ace boom Coons said, I'm. 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:47.400 Getting a script. 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:48.520 Can you say that again, your. 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.440 Ace boom Coons, Ace boom Boomons, I love that. 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.799 And there were these wonderful black women that just really 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:57.400 believe in me. 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:03.000 And part of being a man, the managing it was. 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:10.719 Knowing that going out to Cedar SINAI, going to Century 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.760 City Hospital, Santa Monica Hospital, and marketing the company, meaning 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.480 that getting with the social workers, because those are the 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.919 people that refer you from the hospital to as discharged planners, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:24.200 the ones that are when as you're leaving the hospital, 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:25.920 they okay, it's call this person, this person, this person 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:27.440 for nursing care once you leave. 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.400 But all of them were black women, and they all 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:31.599 like gravitated to me. 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:33.880 So it says this weird thing that these social workers 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.560 that were all black were love me. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:37.680 It doesn't surprise me. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:39.040 And then they were like, you got to go to 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:40.960 this guy, you gotta get so and so and so 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:41.680 I said I can do this. 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:43.720 So and so I started with. 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:45.800 Did you have to get like a degree or like. 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:47.279 You didn't know what I was doing. 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.200 I'm talking taxes all of it, and so. 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.560 And so I started with about three nurses, four nurses. 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.520 And and we had I don't know, I had to 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:01.040 move out of my house because it was like they 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:02.000 thought I was running like. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:03.680 Some sort of organization there. 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.640 I had moved to Sycamore and Melrose and and so 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:09.960 I had to move to had My first offices were 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:11.200 on Wiltshire. 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.520 And Lebrea and. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.839 Yeah, we and so we So I went from four 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.680 nurses to like one hundred and fifty nurses. Holy But 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.159 the reason what happened during that time was was that 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.600 it became sort of like black women sort of flocking 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.720 to me and aids. 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.640 It and nobody and no one knew. 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.320 No one wanted to touch the patient, but my girls would, right, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.400 and so my girls would go in and then they 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:42.320 would going and so that and that's really where the 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:43.440 boom happened for me. 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.520 And then I was like it was out of control. 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.359 And then I was living my own private sort of 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.520 thing while my success with the nursing agency. 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.839 Was coming along, and it. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.160 You mean, like your own personal life or like it was. 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.440 Crazy, because what happens is that you know, I'd come 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.039 I wasn't rich, so I was homeless, and so what 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.640 do you do with someone that doesn't have an education, 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.880 Your father's gone, You have a lot of money, I mean, 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:12.720 I was making a. 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.280 Lot of money. I'm making I don't even I can't. 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:17.800 I mean, I mean I must have sold I sold 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.720 it for a few million, but even then it was 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:22.080 undervalued at the time. 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.080 So I was making a noise my money. And so 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.240 I did a lot of drugs. And I had a 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:28.120 lot of friends at. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:33.040 The same time that were dying, and so I was 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.080 on my own sort of path of. 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:36.720 Like why are my friends dying? 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.920 These guys are so much better than me, nicer than me, 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.720 kinder than me, souls that were just like dropping like 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.640 fives and black guys at the time, people think that 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.320 this COVID thing was a thing. Black men were dying 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.600 and garbage trucks were picking them up because the hospitals 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.640 weren't taking them, their parents weren't taking them well, and 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.560 so it was really I don't think that people people 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:01.600 think like, oh, like, how does he come up with 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:02.240 these stories? 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:03.960 You know what I mean? They come from a place 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.920 of watching people die in your arms over and over 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.320 and over and over again. I mean, and I don't 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.080 It's like, I don't think people don't you know. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.800 Now, I will first always say there's those of us 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:21.880 and we're in the same years of life. The the 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.920 trauma of all of that, I don't think people realize. 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:26.760 I mean, there's a generation of people that just want't here. 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:31.080 They don't know, but there's the trauma of that. I mean, 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.360 even the reality of saying people were being picked up 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:39.560 by garbage trucks because they don't want to touch them conceivable, inconceivable. 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:44.720 I mean, this is a civilized, first world country and 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:45.440 we see. 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.839 Ambulances aren't taking him in, the hospitals aren't taking him in. 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:50.200 Especially African Americans. 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.840 It was like on another different level, the white boys 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.720 down in West Hollywood were at least I think their 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.280 parents were quasi accepting them. And I think that, but 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.560 the homophobia in the black community was so rampant and 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.040 so like and and so and also you have to understand, 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.000 my dad had convinced me that, you know, being gay 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.439 was a death sentence prior to Aid's ever coming out. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:16.000 So I just assumed once he died that this was 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.240 just a fad of complete this was supposed to be. 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.080 When did you get ahead of the drugs? 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:33.079 Get ahead of the drugs? 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.160 I think, my kids is what sort of did it? 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:44.080 Because I adopted my brother's children that were that when 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.520 they were like three days old. My partner and I 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.920 Billy Hopkins at the time, the Castle director, my brother 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:58.920 was going to jail and his he said that he 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:00.720 called me and I was in po Springs. I'll never 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.080 get I was armed ecstasy or. 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.400 Something or MDA. No no, no, no, it was called No. 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:08.240 They didn't have malley. 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:14.240 Then they had lemon lemons, that lemon drop, the lemonslues. 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:14.280 Cuala, nothing like. 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:17.000 It. 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:20.320 And you don't make them any they don't make them 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:21.560 any clean. 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:23.240 We're not promoting drug us. 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:25.680 We don't do those anymore at all. 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.000 Well, maybe a valium when I have to fly. 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.440 Well that's it, because when I fly to I take isamix. 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.000 I mean it isn't it the same? 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.679 Yeah, basically they both mellow you out. 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:37.360 Yeah, you gotta anyway. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:41.960 So I'm in Palm Springs and my boyfriend at the 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.160 time really wanted kids. 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:45.440 And he lived in New York and I lived in 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:47.400 l a And and I was. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.240 Really struggling because I was struggling from a drug perspective. 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.400 The nursing agency had gone, I had gotten into this 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:55.560 business some kind of way. 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:01.000 I was lost. My friends were dying or dead. I 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:01.600 was alone. 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:03.640 I was with this guy that you know, I liked 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.839 a lot, and he wanted kids and I didn't want kids. 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:08.760 And my brother called me to say, listen, I'm going 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:09.160 to jail. 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.200 My girlfriend doesn't want the kids and I need you 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:14.760 to take them. 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.360 And they were twins. They were coming, and. 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.080 I was like, she was four months and she was 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.520 four months end at the time, and I said, okay, 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.480 bye in church. 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.920 No small ask on that one, but yeah. 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.480 So they arrived in January and my and. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:37.960 And sure enough to the day, you know, my. 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.520 Mom called me and and she said that the mother 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.400 had left them on her doorsteps in snow and taken 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:50.360 off and they were days old, and and she says, 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.560 you are going to come and take these kids, And 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:55.760 so thank you. In some deep way, I think that 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.120 she understood that I, without knowing it, that something was 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:03.440 wrong with me, and that because she's so magical and spiritual, 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:05.440 she knew that these kids were going to save my life. 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.320 So so I said, I'm not taking okay, So but 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:09.199 my partner said I. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:10.000 Really want kids. 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:16.520 So we took the kids and and I thought, I thought. 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.760 Oh they were also they were drug babies, they were 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.160 just the Yeah. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:28.400 So I thought that I was saving them. 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:29.920 Are you with me? Yeah? 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:30.760 I am? 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.280 And so I come here, I waiting over to New 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.360 York and you're driving out the Philadelphia and getting the 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:45.400 kids and Bruce, they they saved your life. 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.920 They saved your life. That's the beauty. Things happen in 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:50.679 one's life. 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.240 You don't know, it's crazy, it's crazy. 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.359 So you raised them straight. 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.520 Through from three days old, from three days old. You 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:00.319 want some kids? Is there? 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:00.960 Twenty eight. 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.280 Welcome back to Table for two after his time in 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:30.320 nursing our guest. Lee Daniels became a casting director and manager, 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:35.680 and I'm curious did he always have Hollywood on his mind? 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:39.439 The beauty is. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:43.079 That I always think the paths that open up that 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:43.960 you know, you don't know. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:45.679 So you take a right, you take a left. Here 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.000 you are you create this business? Quesh does this road 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.560 lead to Tedy Daniels. I'm sitting with today. 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.040 So I'm eight years old. I'm in the first time. 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:57.120 I welcome to the library. 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:01.400 Okay, I go into the I don't know how, how, why, 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:02.880 but God took. 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.920 Me into the theater section. I opened a book. 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.960 There's a cover of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton in 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:12.880 black and white, and the book is. 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:14.880 Called Who's Afraid of Virginia Book? I'm eight. 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.560 Wow, I opened a book. It's my I'm reading it 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.480 cover to cover. I'm obsessed with it. 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:21.880 I don't know why I'm obsessed with it. 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:23.840 I'm obsessed with it because the words it's like a 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:25.960 play and this is oh oh. 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.760 Martha says this, George says this, oh oh oh. 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.520 And so I read it as the first book I 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:33.680 took out of the library. 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:35.760 I took it home on my stoop. 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.120 I had my neighbors, and my sisters read Honey and 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:44.040 George and Martha and all and and I said, you're 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.520 not saying it right. And I think, because you know, 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.160 I come from a very large family, and I've seen 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.880 so much. At that age, I understood the nuance of 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:59.520 what these complicated I understood it. I don't understand how 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:01.240 I understand about understood. 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:05.640 The complicated relationships with him. It's yeah, I mean it's. 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.360 An incredible that's a that's an incredible first book to 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.400 gravitate to. And you're right, some higher force, the Lord 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.760 what you're like and you ate and can actually understand that. 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:18.800 I understand and and I'm laughing at it. 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:20.600 So and then so I start writing myself, and then 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.760 I started doing other things. But there I didn't understand 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.920 what a director or a writer was. It was just 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.240 something that and I wasn't encouraged to do that as 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.840 a kid because my shows and stuff, and no, I. 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.240 Did one play in in sixth grade. 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:41.080 I was a king and and and I thought I 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.000 understood it a little bit. I was performing, but I 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.960 didn't want to act. I knew that I wanted to 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:52.840 create and and so and your job what he forget 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.080 it he was like, are you like the idea of 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.480 even writing? I used to hide my journal and I 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.960 used to hide my thought because it was so not 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:03.400 the thing to do, right. 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.920 And so that's the time we grew up in if 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:11.240 your parents sniff that you might be aay they You know, 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.240 it was a generation of people that thought by not 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.880 doing it, you could avoid being one. 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:18.360 One has nothing to do with the other. 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.480 All you're doing is squashing somebody and not letting them 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.960 be individuate and be and self actualized too much later, 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:30.560 which then leads to, you know, people becoming drug addicts 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.560 or sex addicts. We had, we had to do all 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:37.640 of our adolescences much later. I think, I know, right, yep, 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:39.960 you know we couldn't do it at fourteen fifteen. 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.400 You weren't at that time. Now these kids today, I 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:42.720 don't know. 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:44.520 Do you think it's okay today? I don't know. I 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:46.440 just think that I don't know what to make up today. Well, 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:47.800 the so I am lost the. 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.200 Smartphone thing, I think it was okay for a minute, 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:53.840 meaning young. 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:55.200 People were like, yeah, you can have a boyfriend in 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:55.680 high school. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:57.640 You weren't going to get beat up or you weren't 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.720 going to be called like faggota all the time. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:03.240 I was like, you know, growing up and you know, 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.879 or learn how to hide. 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:07.760 Because like, one of the things I think that we 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:13.119 develop is how do you figure out how to disappear 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:13.920 in a room. 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:14.399 Full of people? 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.560 So you it's so profound with you know, I just 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:18.119 got chills. 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.600 It's it's it's a survival thing. 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:26.560 Yeah, and I think not, But then I think the smartphone, right, 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:28.560 I think the smart. 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:28.720 I just got chills. 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:29.440 Oh, I love you. 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.399 The idea of hiding is something that I used to 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:34.080 in kindergarten. 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.800 I used to hold my I used to hold. 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:43.359 My peek so I wouldn't go to the bathroom, and 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:44.960 then I used to run home away. 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.480 From the bullies, just so I could alleviate myself. 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:49.520 Right, because you knew. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:51.520 If I was in that bathroom, I was in trouble. 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:52.240 You were in trouble. 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.000 So you know, you do an incredible movie, you know 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:10.760 you do Precious that must be based on these women 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.040 that you were working with, Right. 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:19.720 It's no, it's based on me. It's based on a 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:20.600 lot of this on me. 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.160 I under again, like like I understood who's a greater 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.840 Virginia Wolf? When I read the book pushed by sapphire. 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.920 I understood it at its DNA because it was my story, 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.440 even though my dad never sexually abused me. I knew 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.120 what it was like to run from the bullies at 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.520 five and then be bullied home at home, right, so there. 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:42.600 Was no safe there. 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:47.439 I wasn't safe anywhere and so and so except with 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:52.280 my mom and so and so. I understood. 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.879 And then I'd seen so many precious is on my street. 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:59.159 I understood what beatings meant. I understood what what you know, 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.919 understood it all. I understood the nuance of what that 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:08.119 girl had gone through, everything, the pain and the beauty 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.120 of her finding herself ultimately, I mean, the only thing. 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.400 And I couldn't understand why it was that I didn't 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.040 have HIV. I was like, I don't understand how come 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:15.760 I don't have HIV? 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:17.400 I don't why amn't I have HIV. 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.159 I'm just waiting for it, waiting to get HIV right, 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.159 like like literally going and going into the bad houses 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.480 looking for it, because I'm thinking to myself, it's. 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.640 Just a matter of time. I might as well get hat, 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:30.440 you know what I mean. I don't understand that guy 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:31.399 had a bigger purpose for me. 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.320 Oh, you know completely clearly. 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.199 Yeah, and so that's so for Precious, it was it 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:39.919 just was something. All of it lives in me. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.280 I did The Paperboy after that, yeah, all, but Precious 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.800 really really resonated with me. 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.560 I mean it was a knockout of a film. And 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.400 you know, you're casting she was. 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:54.440 Amazing, amazing, Yeah you. 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.639 Have and you know also was amazing when you've used her, 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.240 I believe twice Mariah Carroy, what's your you. 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:04.920 Have an affinity for like? And she was very good. Yeah, 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.399 you know, a social worker. 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:12.880 You know, it's unrecognizable, right, and then we're like wow, I. 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:14.960 Mean Ellen Maren was supposed to play the role, oh, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.639 because I had just directed her in shadow Boxer, my 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:18.760 director of her debut. 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.359 And but but. 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.320 Helen got a job, a big job, and and bailed. 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.159 So I called, and I can't wait to work for 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:29.479 Helen again. I love her so much. 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:31.439