Crème-Magazine: Why was this film important for you to make? Why this book?

Lee Daniels: I don’t have the answer for that. Other than, you know, I’ll try to answer it.
All of my movies give voice to people that are faceless; all of them. All of my movies also give voice to that grey area in life that I live. I try to be a great father. I try to be a good man. I think that we all are good people. I really, in my heart believe that we are all good people. But life throws shit at us. And then we’re struggling everyday to deal with this shit. And we end up doing bad things. End up falling on my ass; embarrassing myself. I done fucked up again being a Dad. I’m worthless. Oh, whoa (is me).

I think that my cinema gives life and justification to the grey area that we all live in. I thought that “Precious” is another voiceless, faceless person who you just walk by on the street everyday. And we don’t really see them. But now I’m a see her. I’m a see her now.

Crème-Magazine: What was the challenge in that? How do you give a face or voice to someone who is invisible? What was the challenge in bringing that story to life?

Lee Daniels:  You have to ask the other actors. For me, I don’t remember much of anything. I’m like a train and it picks up speed and it picks up speed. So it’s all a blur to me. I don’t remember anything about the film. I can’t. I don’t know why. I’m working 18 hours a day for two and a half months of my life and I’m on adrenaline. And when you’re sleeping it’s with one eye open.

What kept me motivated was this little girl that I grew up with. You might have heard the story: I was 11 and she was five or six; a little heavy set, light-skinned girl who lived four doors down. I used to play with her. It was three in the afternoon and from nowhere she came to my front door naked--in the middle of the afternoon. She barely had nubs. She covered herself. There was blood and puss and sweat dripping from her body. Crying. Blood. Extension chords. She looked me right in the eyes and said, “My Mommy’s gonna kill me.” And then I looked over my shoulder and I looked at my Mother and for the first time I saw fear in my Mother’s eyes; and I can remember feeling [well] there’s no one word to describe it. Fear. Furiousness. Hatred. Ashamed for her. Sadness. Nausea. I read the book some thirty semi-years later and it evoked exactly those feelings; and I said, I have to heal.

I don’t look at films the way y’all look at the end product. I look at it as me growing as a man. Not as a filmmaker, but as a man. Subliminally it happens as a filmmaker. Growing as a person. And so I don’t look at that process. Though I can’t remember everything, I remember the hole. And the hole was making sure that I was able to feel okay at the end of the experience. I was okay.

Crème-Magazine: Therapeutic.

Lee Daniels: Yes, I was very okay with understanding not only the girl, but the Mother. And the why. That she was somebody else’s baby too. And that something happened to her.

Crème-Magazine: I saw this the other evening with other journalists and I was surprised because they said, why do they have to air out our dirty clothes. Why do they do this? What is their problem in bringing this to life?

Lee Daniels:  Let me just say this.  I had a problem too. My Mother had a problem too. I did a movie called “The Woodsman” and I was talking to Sam Jackson about it, and I got a lot of flack from Halle Berry about him being a Black man. My Mother said to me, “if you think about putting a Black man as a pedophile, don’t you ever come to my house again.”  That upset me. I was like ‘Ma, you can not tell me what to do I am a grown man.’ So I go to Kevin Bacon.

Still, totally Mother whipped. But then I start thinking about what separates us from not having those same (issues). I went down to, in doing my research for “Precious,” I had to understand statistics about HIV in 1987. So I went down to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in Chelsea. And I’m expecting to see all the boys there. I’m not. Who do I see? Black women. Why do I see Black women? Because Black men are not living in their truth; they are on the DL and they are infecting Black women. They’re infecting Black women because they’re living in a place where they don’t want to expose the dirty laundry. The church denounces it. Their inner society denounces it. Their friends and family, their work environment--because of that, our women are dying. And they are the statistic to beat. Not gay men. Black women.

So I think that, that sort of thing about [why do we have to do that] is foreign and antiquated. Certainly, it’s the same themes that Spielberg did with literacy, obesity, incest, all those things, but he did it from a White man’s perspective that cleaned it up.

We went down and dug into the grit under the dirt under the pig feet nails. And I think that is [what is] so disturbing--that it is right in your face.

Crème-Magazine: How can you have success with a film like “Monster’s Ball” and still have a hard time getting funding for Precious?

Lee Daniels:  Look, I can’t say that Hollywood did not open it’s doors to me after “Monster’s Ball” that would be an inaccuracy. It was the doors that were open to me that I chose not to go to. They were very embarrassing films that I would never do. That I couldn’t [in my conscience] do. I didn’t want to do “Soul Baby” or “Who’s my baby’s cousin’s Daddy?”

Look, this is a business. It’s called show business and I have two kids. And I have to support my kids. And so I gotta look at it like, it’s hard to walk away from a couple million dollars to do “Soul Baby’s Bottle” or whatever. I had to stick to what I believe. That is my truth and is my work. Your question very specifically was…I do Woodsman…

(Interruption)

Lee Daniels: Just give me a couple more minutes. I’m in my moment…I do these movies that I think, make people think. Not as a filmmaker. I am who, I am. I am an African-American filmmaker. And I think that I have an obligation that when the coffin is closed and the dirt is on the grave, I want my kids to say that their gay dad, married to this White man did something that will leave a little bit of a legacy. I want them to be proud of me.

I think that “Precious” was not difficult to finance. That was the irony of it all. You would think that it would be difficult.  In hindsight, I think to myself, what was I thinking? I don’t know what I was thinking about doing. Like, I don’t think at this current moment I would have done “Precious.”

When you think of the math, who would go see a film about a fat Black girl? Like, really. Like who? Logically, it doesn’t make any sense. But I think that it has been blessed with angels. Our angel was the script. Our next angel was Lisette--that I got financing for this movie, that I could find the girl to play her, that we could get accepted into Sundance, you know. And then we didn’t even go to DVD. And Oprah Winfrey is calling me as I’m like getting my award.  I’m talking about stepping up on the carpet to get my award and I get a call from “unknown” and pick up on my phone. “Unknown?”

Now who would answer their phone? I’ll tell you who: a filmmaker who is starving because that’s someone with the money or a movie star. I’m already thinking about my next movie as I’m getting my award. I think that we’re blessed with angels. I think the film has been blessed with angels from the beginning through the end.
 
Crème-Magazine: How do you go about approaching people to get it made?

Lee Daniels: I think it’s the actors at the end of the day.  I always have to be the spokesperson for my films which really drives me crazy because the real people that are in the dirt are my crew.  I’m talking about my people that work for free. I’m talking about for peanuts and for chicken wings. Truly. This is independent filmmaking like you have not seen it. 

It’s  a spirit that’s on my set that’s got Marvin Gaye playing. There’s a camaraderie that’s there. So I think that we can speak for the actors that work for me for free and the crew that works for me for free. But they really believe in me. I’m so blessed. I’m the puppeteer. But I am only the puppeteer. These people understand me and they’re the warriors for my work. It’s not hard for me at all. It’s not. It sounds like it’s hard but it’s not because people are really in my corner. And really talented people are in my corner.

Crème-Magazine:  What is the skinny on Mo’Nique? What is the problem?

Lee Daniels: What do you mean?

Crème-Magazine:  Rumor says she’s not doing any of the publicity.

Lee Daniels: Yes she is.

Crème-Magazine: When?

Lee Daniels: She was in Sundance. She came to Sundance. She was on Oprah. Here’s the skinny on Mo’Nique.  She said “what are you talking about? You are my award.” She gives her soul to me. She gives her soul to her kids, to her TV show.  She’s number one. She is the best mother I have ever met. The press thing for Mo’Nique, she’s like, “What do you want me to do Lee so I can stop with the kids?” Her child was sick up in Toronto so she couldn’t make it there. One of them was sick. She got twins. Five year olds. It was the twin’s birthday--that was for the NY Film Festival.

She’s on another level. So people interpret that she’s being a snob. She said Lee, get this, “I’m here. What you need?” And let them talk. I know that she’s there. She’s gonna be doing The LA premiere. She’s there…this is what kills me about the press they find something. It’s ludicrous.

Precious opens in select theaters on November 6th.  For more info: www.weareallprecious.com

Read Part 1 of this story here.

Interview with Gabourey Sidibe