Lee Daniels

Hey, everybody, thanks for pulling up a chair today on Table for Two. This is Bruce Bosi and we are at the Sunset Tower Hotel, my favorite place in La.

Hello.

Hey, today we're having lunch with an accomplished director, an Academy Award winning movie producer. You might know the epic TV series he created called Empire.

If you're watching.

Netflix as we go into the Halloween months, you should be watching this scary movie called Deliverance, which is based on a true story.

Are we ordering, Yeah, he came by, but we were talking.

That's what Michael Jackson, who.

But the most fascinating thing about this gentleman is that he came to Hollywood and began his career as a nurse. So let's get into that. So sit back, grab a glass of rose, and enjoy. We're having lunch today with mister Lee Daniels. I'm Bruce Bozsi and this is my podcast Table for two.

Well, if you've pulled.

Up a chair today, we are having lunch with we are We are having lunch with an incredible director, producer, Academy Award winner, mister Lee Daniels.

Welcomely, Thank you, Bruce.

I'm so happy to be here. Would you like to know that? My boyfriend told me you can't, like not do you're pressing without talking to Bruce.

Because he's obsessed.

Get out.

I swear to god, he said you can. I was like, of course, and I was thinking, of course. I mean, and he's very very he's.

Very very he's forties, very New York times, very into the know right well.

And it's that very good taste because he's with you and he loves my show.

That's really meaningful to me because you sit here and you don't know how it resonates with people. Something popped up, which was in September ninth, nineteen eighty three, Newsweek had a cover that had a vile of blood in it, and I was talking about AIDS and the pandemic of AIDS and like, if you that's kind of crazy because today is September tenth.

So that's why I kind of popped up, and that pandemic. I did not realize that when you came out West, you were working in the nursing world.

You were at first a receptionist and then you opened up your own and you were primarily dealing with people with HIV AIDS, So like, how did that.

I don't know.

I really don't know how it had.

I just sort of unfolded. I was I was a I looked in it. I was living on Hollywood. I was living on will Cox and Hollywood Boulevard, and I was looking for a job. I just found a roommate. And I was homeless for a little bit, and I just found a roommate. And I went looking through the La Times, and incidentally on Sunset and will Cox, there was a nursing agency in the LA Times Classified section that was looking for receptionists. And I knew I had a good speaking voice, so I went in too to

Like twenty three at the time, and I and finally said, you know what, I think I can do this on my own.

And so am amcious from the beginning, like what I could do? I want to do?

So twenty four and I'm feel a little cocky.

I got I'm making eight hundred dollars a week, which is a lot of money for me at the time, and I and I said, I think I think I can do this on my own.

So I.

Knew nothing about opening a business at all.

And I just sort of said, I got my three girls that were my solid ace boom Coons said, I'm.

Getting a script.

Can you say that again, your.

Ace boom Coons, Ace boom Boomons, I love that.

And there were these wonderful black women that just really believe in me.

And part of being a man, the managing it was.

Knowing that going out to Cedar SINAI, going to Century City Hospital, Santa Monica Hospital, and marketing the company, meaning that getting with the social workers, because those are the people that refer you from the hospital to as discharged planners, the ones that are when as you're leaving the hospital, they okay, it's call this person, this person, this person for nursing care once you leave.

But all of them were black women, and they all like gravitated to me.

So it says this weird thing that these social workers that were all black were love me.

It doesn't surprise me.

And then they were like, you got to go to this guy, you gotta get so and so and so I said I can do this.

So and so I started with.

Did you have to get like a degree or like.

You didn't know what I was doing.

I'm talking taxes all of it, and so.

And so I started with about three nurses, four nurses.

And and we had I don't know, I had to move out of my house because it was like they thought I was running like.

Some sort of organization there.

I had moved to Sycamore and Melrose and and so I had to move to had My first offices were on Wiltshire.

And Lebrea and.

Yeah, we and so we So I went from four nurses to like one hundred and fifty nurses. Holy But the reason what happened during that time was was that it became sort of like black women sort of flocking to me and aids.

It and nobody and no one knew.

No one wanted to touch the patient, but my girls would, right, and so my girls would go in and then they would going and so that and that's really where the boom happened for me.

And then I was like it was out of control.

And then I was living my own private sort of thing while my success with the nursing agency.

Was coming along, and it.

You mean, like your own personal life or like it was.

Crazy, because what happens is that you know, I'd come I wasn't rich, so I was homeless, and so what do you do with someone that doesn't have an education, Your father's gone, You have a lot of money, I mean, I was making a.

Lot of money. I'm making I don't even I can't.

I mean, I mean I must have sold I sold it for a few million, but even then it was undervalued at the time.

So I was making a noise my money. And so I did a lot of drugs. And I had a lot of friends at.

The same time that were dying, and so I was on my own sort of path of.

Like why are my friends dying?

These guys are so much better than me, nicer than me, kinder than me, souls that were just like dropping like fives and black guys at the time, people think that this COVID thing was a thing. Black men were dying and garbage trucks were picking them up because the hospitals weren't taking them, their parents weren't taking them well, and so it was really I don't think that people people think like, oh, like, how does he come up with these stories?

You know what I mean? They come from a place of watching people die in your arms over and over and over and over again. I mean, and I don't It's like, I don't think people don't you know.

Now, I will first always say there's those of us and we're in the same years of life. The the trauma of all of that, I don't think people realize.

I mean, there's a generation of people that just want't here. They don't know, but there's the trauma of that. I mean, even the reality of saying people were being picked up by garbage trucks because they don't want to touch them conceivable, inconceivable.

I mean, this is a civilized, first world country and we see.

Ambulances aren't taking him in, the hospitals aren't taking him in. Especially African Americans.

It was like on another different level, the white boys down in West Hollywood were at least I think their parents were quasi accepting them. And I think that, but the homophobia in the black community was so rampant and so like and and so and also you have to understand, my dad had convinced me that, you know, being gay was a death sentence prior to Aid's ever coming out. So I just assumed once he died that this was just a fad of complete this was supposed to be.

When did you get ahead of the drugs?

Get ahead of the drugs?

I think, my kids is what sort of did it? Because I adopted my brother's children that were that when they were like three days old. My partner and I Billy Hopkins at the time, the Castle director, my brother was going to jail and his he said that he called me and I was in po Springs. I'll never get I was armed ecstasy or.

Something or MDA. No no, no, no, it was called No. They didn't have malley.

Then they had lemon lemons, that lemon drop, the lemonslues.

Cuala, nothing like.

It.

And you don't make them any they don't make them any clean.

We're not promoting drug us.

We don't do those anymore at all.

Well, maybe a valium when I have to fly.

Well that's it, because when I fly to I take isamix.

I mean it isn't it the same?

Yeah, basically they both mellow you out.

Yeah, you gotta anyway.

So I'm in Palm Springs and my boyfriend at the time really wanted kids.

And he lived in New York and I lived in l a And and I was.

Really struggling because I was struggling from a drug perspective. The nursing agency had gone, I had gotten into this business some kind of way.

I was lost. My friends were dying or dead. I was alone.

I was with this guy that you know, I liked a lot, and he wanted kids and I didn't want kids.

And my brother called me to say, listen, I'm going to jail.

My girlfriend doesn't want the kids and I need you to take them.

And they were twins. They were coming, and.

I was like, she was four months and she was four months end at the time, and I said, okay, bye in church.

No small ask on that one, but yeah.

So they arrived in January and my and.

And sure enough to the day, you know, my.

Mom called me and and she said that the mother had left them on her doorsteps in snow and taken off and they were days old, and and she says, you are going to come and take these kids, And so thank you. In some deep way, I think that she understood that I, without knowing it, that something was wrong with me, and that because she's so magical and spiritual, she knew that these kids were going to save my life. So so I said, I'm not taking okay, So but my partner said I.

Really want kids.

So we took the kids and and I thought, I thought.

Oh they were also they were drug babies, they were just the Yeah.

So I thought that I was saving them.

Are you with me? Yeah?

I am?

And so I come here, I waiting over to New York and you're driving out the Philadelphia and getting the kids and Bruce, they they saved your life.

They saved your life. That's the beauty. Things happen in one's life.

You don't know, it's crazy, it's crazy.

So you raised them straight.

Through from three days old, from three days old. You want some kids? Is there?

Twenty eight.

Welcome back to Table for two after his time in nursing our guest. Lee Daniels became a casting director and manager, and I'm curious did he always have Hollywood on his mind?

The beauty is.

That I always think the paths that open up that you know, you don't know.

So you take a right, you take a left. Here you are you create this business? Quesh does this road lead to Tedy Daniels. I'm sitting with today.

So I'm eight years old. I'm in the first time. I welcome to the library.

Okay, I go into the I don't know how, how, why, but God took.

Me into the theater section. I opened a book.

There's a cover of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton in black and white, and the book is.

Called Who's Afraid of Virginia Book? I'm eight.

Wow, I opened a book. It's my I'm reading it cover to cover. I'm obsessed with it.

I don't know why I'm obsessed with it.

I'm obsessed with it because the words it's like a play and this is oh oh.

Martha says this, George says this, oh oh oh.

And so I read it as the first book I took out of the library.

I took it home on my stoop.

I had my neighbors, and my sisters read Honey and George and Martha and all and and I said, you're not saying it right. And I think, because you know, I come from a very large family, and I've seen so much. At that age, I understood the nuance of what these complicated I understood it. I don't understand how I understand about understood.

The complicated relationships with him. It's yeah, I mean it's.

An incredible that's a that's an incredible first book to gravitate to. And you're right, some higher force, the Lord what you're like and you ate and can actually understand that.

I understand and and I'm laughing at it.

So and then so I start writing myself, and then I started doing other things. But there I didn't understand what a director or a writer was. It was just something that and I wasn't encouraged to do that as a kid because my shows and stuff, and no, I.

Did one play in in sixth grade.

I was a king and and and I thought I understood it a little bit. I was performing, but I didn't want to act. I knew that I wanted to create and and so and your job what he forget it he was like, are you like the idea of even writing? I used to hide my journal and I used to hide my thought because it was so not the thing to do, right.

And so that's the time we grew up in if your parents sniff that you might be aay they You know, it was a generation of people that thought by not doing it, you could avoid being one.

One has nothing to do with the other.

All you're doing is squashing somebody and not letting them be individuate and be and self actualized too much later, which then leads to, you know, people becoming drug addicts or sex addicts. We had, we had to do all of our adolescences much later. I think, I know, right, yep, you know we couldn't do it at fourteen fifteen.

You weren't at that time. Now these kids today, I don't know.

Do you think it's okay today? I don't know. I just think that I don't know what to make up today. Well, the so I am lost the.

Smartphone thing, I think it was okay for a minute, meaning young.

People were like, yeah, you can have a boyfriend in high school.

You weren't going to get beat up or you weren't going to be called like faggota all the time.

I was like, you know, growing up and you know, or learn how to hide.

Because like, one of the things I think that we develop is how do you figure out how to disappear in a room.

Full of people?

So you it's so profound with you know, I just got chills.

It's it's it's a survival thing.

Yeah, and I think not, But then I think the smartphone, right, I think the smart.

I just got chills.

Oh, I love you.

The idea of hiding is something that I used to in kindergarten.

I used to hold my I used to hold.

My peek so I wouldn't go to the bathroom, and then I used to run home away.

From the bullies, just so I could alleviate myself.

Right, because you knew.

If I was in that bathroom, I was in trouble.

You were in trouble.

So you know, you do an incredible movie, you know you do Precious that must be based on these women that you were working with, Right.

It's no, it's based on me. It's based on a lot of this on me.

I under again, like like I understood who's a greater Virginia Wolf? When I read the book pushed by sapphire. I understood it at its DNA because it was my story, even though my dad never sexually abused me. I knew what it was like to run from the bullies at five and then be bullied home at home, right, so there.

Was no safe there.

I wasn't safe anywhere and so and so except with my mom and so and so. I understood.

And then I'd seen so many precious is on my street. I understood what beatings meant. I understood what what you know, understood it all. I understood the nuance of what that girl had gone through, everything, the pain and the beauty of her finding herself ultimately, I mean, the only thing. And I couldn't understand why it was that I didn't have HIV. I was like, I don't understand how come I don't have HIV?

I don't why amn't I have HIV.

I'm just waiting for it, waiting to get HIV right, like like literally going and going into the bad houses looking for it, because I'm thinking to myself, it's.

Just a matter of time. I might as well get hat, you know what I mean. I don't understand that guy had a bigger purpose for me.

Oh, you know completely clearly.

Yeah, and so that's so for Precious, it was it just was something. All of it lives in me.

I did The Paperboy after that, yeah, all, but Precious really really resonated with me.

I mean it was a knockout of a film. And you know, you're casting she was.

Amazing, amazing, Yeah you.

Have and you know also was amazing when you've used her, I believe twice Mariah Carroy, what's your you.

Have an affinity for like? And she was very good. Yeah, you know, a social worker.

You know, it's unrecognizable, right, and then we're like wow, I.

Mean Ellen Maren was supposed to play the role, oh, because I had just directed her in shadow Boxer, my director of her debut.

And but but.

Helen got a job, a big job, and and bailed.

So I called, and I can't wait to work for Helen again. I love her so much.

I mean, she's next love, isn't she next love?

She's such a junie anyway, So and so I said Mariah, because I knew Mariah had read two I'm.

Not allowed to say this BYMN say it because wouldna kill me.

At the time, she had read two books. The Bible and pushed by Saffi Wow, and she's, you know, I see, I'm sorry, I'm calling you out. But that was years ago, so we already know you've read any more books with them kids and everything. But anyway, she says, I said, but I need you to follow instructions.

I really need for you to de glam.

Yeah, de glam, and.

You're gonna have to really disappear. And so and she did. She was on time, and she was she did everything, and she trusted.

I think that what you have to.

I think that people talk about my performances like there's a level of trust because I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm looking for it in the moment.

I don't pretend to come on set to know I'm this director that knows guys, I don't know what I'm doing. We're going to be criticized for it because I'm from a world that most white critics don't understand.

So know that already going in that they're not gonna get it, but we get it. And so let's just let's jump off the clip together.

Yeah.

I mean, the performance is a powerhouse in your movies, and I mean look currently on Netflix with Deliverance.

Let me tell you, like the scary movies.

Did you see it?

I did? Scared movies are like, you know, I get scared really easy, do you. Yeah? Brian was liken't watch it. He's like, you know he does that thing? And I like, so here's a movie. How much you love him? Oh my god? I love what drew you. First of all, it's based on a true story, which freaking me out.

That house even when it was like emptied, still have like bad juju around it, and then they knocked it down.

On the land.

What what you're even that project?

And it's it's very interesting because.

It's like almost like I thought, even though it's based on his things, this this like demon.

It's also one's own demons. You're being out, you're showing you know what I mean, which was hard to do. Yeah, talk to me about the lads and the experience and it's really good. Good, So thank you sir.

After Precious they offered me I was a producer.

Came to Tucker Tuley, my producer from shadow Box when my first film, came to me with this and I said, no, I don't want to do it. Well I said, yeah, I do it, but I was questioning whether or not I want to do another story about abuse. But then when I gave the the script to my mom, you were.

Like, no, baby, you.

Aren't open portal.

You work.

You don't work like normal people.

And and I I, I really believe we believe in that kind of stuff.

Jumping on you. Yeah, I didn't. And also I thought it was a horror movie.

Like it was a horror like it was like at the time, I looked at it as if it was really horror, right, And so I let it sit for a long time, and then I just I try to do what I think is in the air.

And I think that and and people think I'm cornying.

I don't care. I think we were in dark times. And I think that act that we're sitting here, even in question about Kamala and Trump, that's say, been a question mark where the country is divided, says the type of times that we really are in.

And and so.

I said, I think that this is this is something I should I think that it's about finding your life. It's not really about horror. It's about finding your life. And I'm going to scare you.

To finding your lies.

And so that was the intent behind the film and why I felt I should do it right, and also I wanted to stretch my muscle. I just like, what does a Lead Daniels horror movie look like? Remember getting in Television's?

Like what is it?

Like?

I did it because I was scared, Like why do I what's a Lee Daniels musical? Like I didn't understand what that whole thing were, Like how do how do I work with a studio?

How do I how do what is that all?

And so if I'm not afraid coming in, I don't really want to do And I work from a place in fear because I've as a gay kid, I was so fearful and some of my best stuff came from fear.

I mean, so I work best in a place of the unknown. Right if any of that yah.

That that completely makes sense. I mean also yours out that it's not a hut, and that's one. But but it appears to be like as.

You tell them, because of the way you shoot it and the things that happen, and the and the mystery and the noises and the flies and the things, and.

You know that ship's going down, but then it isn't.

It's about relationships and it's about your inner Glenn Close is pretty next level in his movie too.

I mean, your whole cast is great. Just she's you know, I I love her.

Great.

So I wanted to separate my story from their story, right, and.

As much as I could.

We had a we had a someone that did deliverances on set every day. Okay, so that's someone that really did evil cast evil stories.

Out on day.

Yeah, because weird shit was happening for a pasting, I.

Didn't want to.

I wanted to explore.

I have so many friends that are bi racial, right, I wanted to find and I had never seen like black people know the Glenn Close character, the Alberta character. She's not in the atmosphere of white people.

Don't know who that is because she's never with white people. She's with black people.

And so for me, I wanted to show two things. One, I wanted to show the complications of.

So many of my biracial friends that have like, what is that like to live in that existence?

How confusing it must be when you have a white mother but you are black?

And what is that? What is that? What the fuck? What does that world really really look like? Yeah?

For a black person with a white mother. But more importantly, I wanted to give life to so many because every every neighborhood I knew and had in Alberta, right, and that was just embraced by black culture that you know, had black kids and black earl grandkids and never and and nobody ever looked twice at her. And it upsets me because so many white critics, I think it's sort of a joke or and it's an insult to the to the black people are gagging over the film like

Paul came up to bout.

Paul invited me over uh to her his house yesterday and it was like, gooped. It's like, you're just like you just keep giving us people that we know that they don't know, but you're speeding the culture.

And it made me feel so good.

I've never seen that, I say, so, you're right. I was like, oh wait a minute. Never seen the dynamics like that, and it's very powerful.

I thought, so that's a Billie Daniels sort of horror film so to speak. Wait, spiritual, Yeah, it isn't a horror film that you're scared at times?

How often are you writing? Are you constantly writing and rewriting?

Right now, I'm doing a I'm doing something for FEX. They want my version of a procedural.

What is the lead?

Dy knows procedurals? So get I'm afraid.

Wait what does that mean?

Meaning like a cock show? Like a weekly cop show?

So what I did was my favorite cop show, complicated relationships again with Cagney and Macy.

I knew about to say that, did you. I knew you were about to say it? Love it? Okay?

So I have Ms Lawrence, who's in every one of my TV shows and films. You know, she was Ebany's best friend and also Billie Holliday's best friend.

What would be like if she were a cop?

A detective dressed like a woman, but dressed like a man, but dressed like a woman, look, but is a man? Miss Lawrence is a cop detective in Philadelphia and she was partnered with another woman who was a Trump supporting, homophobic racist, and the two of them had to solve crimes together. I had to get along to solve these crimes. But they calling each other baggott and just every as slur and just everything as they're off solving the crime together.

What I'm trying to do is bring the world together. And so it's my way of bringing the world together through.

Comedy, through a deep look at race and homophobia in America today and bringing the left and the right together. No one's listening, So just try how do we how do we? How do we do that in a way. So that's what that's what I'm trying, That's what I'm writing right now.

I love it so much.

I gotta tell you that's a brilliant idea. And I think you're right. No one is listening to put that cop show.

Put those characters have to solve crime, help people, and yet come.

From too fundamentally different everything.

But really, let.

Really give life, sense and life to the racist so that they can really felt heard.

Yes, yes, you know what I mean.

Yes, And so that the because they're still they still with somebody's kid at some point. M So, how do we, how do we so Yeah, that's what It's complicated because I find myself meeting I needed a white partner. I partnered with a guy named part handsOn who did bones who really I needed to understand and really feel for the racist too, very similarly to what I felt towards Monique's character in Precious, you know, I need to feel for that person.

Yeah, that makes her character was power. Yeah, yeah, and you have to feel.

She's I don't know, definitely, I'm working on Now.

That's a great So that's that's totally cool.

I mean so when you're working on that now, so procedural, so like when you you have to come up with like the first ten, like you have to come up with the arc.

And then we.

Remember that guy ed Buck here and he was pulling over he was the white guy that was.

I was drubbing all the black boys, the hookers.

I sort of basic a little bit on that where there was there's a serial murderer that's killing gay guys. So they need miss Lawrence's character to really go into the gay black hooker culture.

To help solve the crime.

And that'll be like the first crime be more like more like a true crime meets uh true crime meets there, cad Nee Lisa.

Yeah, thanks for joining us on table for two. In two thousand and one, Lee Daniels took the leap from manager to film director with the movie Monsters Ball. Halle Berry won an Oscar for her role in the film, and it launched Lee's career as a writer and director on both the big and small screens. Let's go back a little bit, just because it was so awesome revolutionary monsters there.

Yes, I mean maybe you've talked it to death, but like no.

I haven't thought that.

That's but you understand it was managing at the time. And now, okay, so I left things casting. I left Warner Brothers was so happy I used to I used to be the head of in the eighties. There was something called Minority Talent that they created for me. They liked my work so much that we created this position. Okay, it was called they knew it was a casting director. So I was the head of minority Talent. How racist is.

The coming says stupid?

Okay.

I went back to the nursing days where I was like, these people need to be we as black people, we need to.

Be We need better jobs, we need better jobs. We need. We can't just be drug dealers. We can't just be pimps.

People don't understand this, but in my lifetime, that's all that there was during that time.

Yeah, there weren't any lawyers. There weren't any we Rarely.

Was there a Sydney Potier rarely. Was there a Sidney Party or Diane cownt rarely. So it was my mission to go out and present black talent. I said, I want to leave this. So I decided to start managing talent.

I said, you can't do this, This is not good.

How can you have Paula Kelly, who was in Sweet Charity Women a boaster place.

How can you have this woman playing a maid. She's smarter than any motherfucker in this room.

What are you fucking talking about, right, And so thank god for many smart casting directors that I was able to find people like Paula Kelly and Loretta Devine.

And people like work.

And but I wasn't really making me money, you know, And I I got really tired of telling black actors I'm sorry.

I can't. I just can't break. I can't break. I can't.

And so that's when monsters ball came in because I started taking on white clients. And when I start taking on white clients, that's where the money start coming. Really, then white boys make the money, right.

Wes Bentley.

Wes Bentley was in a film called I Put him in American Beauty and he took Hollywood by storm. And I was still directing theater too, and I was directing theater little one acts around because it was.

My passion, you know. And again I didn't understand that. I didn't believe him.

I didn't because my dad between my dad saying that, what are you doing in my head? Head? And also it just never been right, and also me being gay like that was a lot.

For me to come into the room. I've never not been who it is that.

I am right, and you know, and so it freaks a lot of people out that I'm gay and black and that was a lot for.

A lot of people, and a lot for black people, a lot from white people.

Yeah wait right, you know, and so has that gotten better because you've become more successful.

So that's like it comes with success and age.

I think you know age really Yeah, It's like tomorrow is not promised.

Right, tomorrow is not problem.

I'm so happy.

I gotta be happy.

I've tried to live you know you and I watch you.

You're so happy. I don't know whether or not you're unhappy when you get home, whether you're.

Unhappy or I'm just.

No, You're just so happy.

And so I think that I think that it's hard to find happiness, but you have to stay here and you're happy because tomorrow is a promise.

Yeah, I mean that is something really to remember. Not only is tomorrow or not promise, but eventually you do have your last tomorrow. It's just the reality. So like not that you want to live with the Albumtross and bat around your neck, but the awareness about his frame.

And I also think age, especially for guys like us who grew I think completely different on the one level, but it was the first gay pride. I everyone who was in nineteen ninety here in LA and I remember having growing up in the West West, West Hollywood, the Upper East Side of New York City, which all looked the same, all white.

For the most part.

I think I had one black kid in my class and he actually raised his hand one day in an assembly and said, because it was pertinent to what was happening, and he said, how would you any of you feel if.

You were me in this room? And it was the first time that I thought to myself because oh wow, like this, yeah, like how does that feel?

But that day in nineteen ninety that June, I looked around Santa Minchael Boulevard in the Pacific Design Center area and saw all these different people and said, oh, this is what we have me common and we come in all different shapes and size an ethnic backgrounds in black and white. It was very powerful to me because if you're not exposed to it, and that's what you're doing too, is you're through your art, is you're exposing and educating.

You're still a young man now.

You know what I mean trying to say, like, do you feel there was a responsibility as you started to become more successful.

I didn't know. Listen. Part of it is just a lot of it is.

I'm in my thirties, I'm in my forties. It's not about I'm greedy. I want I want it now, you know, it's not about I don't. I didn't understand that demanding that I had as many African Americans around me when I was working, I felt a responsibility, not a responsibility, but I needed to feel safe. And so it wasn't about me thinking about it being politically correct at the time, but in hindsight, it was like, you know, making sure

It's still I have to be able to talk a language and feel safe.

I mean, I've read that it wasn't the easiest for.

You, but Empire all of a sudden heads and becomes this massive cultural thing. And also how you portrayed black culture and people, gay people gay.

To you gay blacks. Yeah, but that was a reason why. It was the reason why I did that too, Like I was.

Tired of being again, I was tired of being like disrespected by my peers. You know, there were black directors that didn't take me seriously because I was gay, because gay men aren't taking seriously.

And I was embarrassed to walk into a room of black people, right, you know. I mean, I am responsible.

For the first black woman getting an Academy, were responsible for the first black writer getting an Academy, and so and yet I felt uncomfortable walking into rooms because of you know, I just it took me back to yeah, kids and like you know, and like men looking at you like you know, and women looking at you like you know. I was like and and I was like fuck that. And so for me, it was important that

That we were creating a black dynasty.

Yes, right, And I wasn't really so I was worried about not knowing that the conversation was really changing, that it was really that that that it was cracking homophobia open in the community.

You know.

And I think the death rat got a lot of death threats. And so when the death threats came in, yeah, I got.

Security for the first time. Like, I didn't understand what that And Queenlan team was like, maybe you ain't got security. I go, no, what's security? Who needs security?

All of a sudden, I need I need security because what were what were people? Because they really couldn't deal with two black men kissing two people.

They just actually put it on the screen. Are you kidding me? He has to be stopped because this is the devil's work. And so it was. It was terrifying. It was really really scary. It was great, it was and I didn't understand.

It that not only were we doing that, but you know, boost there weren't any black writers.

I want you to hear me. There was Shonda Rhimes in her world, but.

I'm talking about motherfuckers that could write from the street. They weren't allowed into this system. They weren't never allowed into the system. I had to fight for a black director to direct the third episode. I directed the first two episodes of Empire, and I wanted. I wanted a John Singleton got Restless Soul, And he.

Said, no, he can't do.

He can't because he's not a he's not directed television.

I said, are you kidding me?

So the fight.

That Cia and myself took on to make sure that there were writers of color in the again, I guess I don't even I don't. It's like I'm so busy worried about that, I'm not thinking about the bigger picture.

Yes, look it, and that paved the way for Black Panther, black Ish, Insecure, all of it.

And so I'm in the center of just trying to tell my little story, not even understanding it was as big as it was, right, because if I have paid attention to as big as it us, I don't think I would have crumbled.

Right well, totally.

Plus, you can't look macro like you're in it. And then when all of a sudden time passes and all these shows develop, and then you find yourself that they're a writer's room that have black.

People in it.

You then go, oh, look what this didn't They didn't understand I'm.

Only twenty fifteen.

I mean that was like yesterday, and they didn't understand. I had no saying. I didn't go to school, and I didn't know how to navigate when things weren't right, and they.

Kept saying to me, listen, I love my studio. I think that they've done so well by.

Me, and I'm really happy.

But when they didn't understand the culture and they kept telling me, and I had a room full of white people telling me what I was supposed to do, and I'm literally the only spot in the spot and I'm thugging it out.

Yeah, it's terrible.

It's terrifying because it also brings you back.

To being the little boy, the kid, and you don't know how to and then you don't feel worthy and.

You feel like am I doing something wrong?

And I'm not in love?

And then you have to figure out how to again. As opposed to hiding in a room full of people.

Now I have to be seen in a roomful of people, and how am I going to get there and hold my space.

But thank god, I mean, like you know that I was able to I didn't understand the power of it all, and I was willing to walk away because I didn't.

I didn't care.

What scares you?

I think it scares me that just being miss understood, people misunderstanding the way, not understanding of baby.

Who what scratching your head? Because I think we all.

Want to be loved? I agree.

I think that's the bottom line is we just want to be loved, right, yeah, mister Daniels, Yes, sir, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you.

I don't want you in my life. Friends, I want to hang. We can do that.

I know we can.

Thank you for joining us today.

Having me on Baby Okay, have a great day, everyone, welcome.

Thank you for pulling up a chair.

I love our lunches and never forget the romance of a meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Table for Two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio seven three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce Bosi and Nathan King. Our supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. Our editors are Vincent to Johnny and Cas b Bias. Table for two is researched and written by Jack Sullivan.