filmmaker
PROFILE
Lee Daniels
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FROM Lee Daniels
The Business
Filmmaker Lee Daniels Filmmaker Lee Daniels talks with Kim Masters about the uphill battle to fund his new movie, Lee Daniels' The Butler , an African American historical drama. In the end it took creative casting of white actors and a slew of producers to get the movie a green light. Daniels wonders aloud if it would have been easier to get investors if it were a white drama. He also opens up about how his personal suffering has impacted his filmmaking. As a child he experienced physical abuse at the hands of his father for being gay -- something Daniels says is not welcome in the African American community, and when attending a white High School he encountered racism. Kim asks him if, in today's Hollywood, it's harder to be African American or to be gay. He says he needs to remain silent because he wants to work.
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