Filmmaker tells Austin audience about his difficult childhood and how Donald Trump has improved his writing.
Lee Daniels said he doesn’t understand the #OscarsSoWhite controversy in a keynote speech at SXSW on Sunday in which his Precious and Empire star Gabourey Sidibe made a surprise appearance.
Difficult childhood
Daniels began by recounting the much-publicised story of his difficult youth.
He grew up in the projects in southwest Philadelphia where he witnessed friends getting shot, was raised in a family that dealt drugs to earn a living and by a father who hit him in an attempt to make him “a man”, and realised at a young age he was gay.
“That’s the America I knew [in the 1960s],” Daniels said. “My mom knew something was going to happen to me if I didn’t leave.”
With a small pot of money raised by his family, Daniels went to college for one year in Missouri before he started a nursing...
Lee Daniels said he doesn’t understand the #OscarsSoWhite controversy in a keynote speech at SXSW on Sunday in which his Precious and Empire star Gabourey Sidibe made a surprise appearance.
Difficult childhood
Daniels began by recounting the much-publicised story of his difficult youth.
He grew up in the projects in southwest Philadelphia where he witnessed friends getting shot, was raised in a family that dealt drugs to earn a living and by a father who hit him in an attempt to make him “a man”, and realised at a young age he was gay.
“That’s the America I knew [in the 1960s],” Daniels said. “My mom knew something was going to happen to me if I didn’t leave.”
With a small pot of money raised by his family, Daniels went to college for one year in Missouri before he started a nursing...
- 3/12/2017
- ScreenDaily
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