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Hes in jeans and a black hoodie embossed with the word blackman in black letters.
Nothing so far, Daniels says, reading from his phone.
No love yet forStar.
By days end,Starwould be canceled.
Im NOT letting them STOP the CULTURE.
Its not a #MeToo comedy.
Its a look at the world and the crazy that were living in right now.
Is it an issue you have strong feelings about?Ive been itching.
You know what happened to me?
Around the time of the whole Harvey Weinstein thing, I was brought into Fox HR.
Like, you couldnt use the B-word.
B forbitch?Mm-hmm.
I said, Okay.
And I think they said, You cant look people in the eyes too long.
Be careful with touching.
These are all things that I do in my room when I work.
And then they said, And you cant say the N-word.
I said, Hold on.
If I cant sayniggato a room of niggas, you wouldnt be here.
I said, I cant have this conversation.
I need to know who I can call on you.
Youre not going to play these games with me.
What was their response?What could they say?
I mean, they turned red-faced.
Obama is my nigga.
Obama is your nigga.
Obama is the nigga.
Why not?I go through phases.
Its a really tricky word.
My son, whos 23, came home with a guy once who was clearly gay.
And so he says, Do you have a problem with it?
Go out and ask him.
You know hes gay.
Hes like, And?
I said, Are you?
He goes, What if I were?
Youre gay, what are you getting at here?
I felt so stupid.
I mean, he dates women, and he made me look a fool.
Fear is what my mom felt for me, for sure.
My mother didnt want to admit it, but she knew I was gay.
It was in the 70s, and my daddy had just died.
She instinctively knew that I was either going to get bullied, shot, or end up in jail.
Its very fancy, wealthy, and it might as well be private.
I was probably one of two or three blacks in my class.
Youre looking at somebody thats supposed to be in jail, a statistic.
My brother didnt stay out of jail.
I think thats the beauty ofEmpire.
Empirechanged him?Oh, for sure.
Thousands of men throughout every prison in America sit and watch silently.
Because ofEmpire,he saw me as something other than somebody gay.
I think thats beautiful, and I love my brother very much now.
You initially publiclysupported his story.Are you embarrassed?Im beyond embarrassed.
I think that when it happened, I had a flash of me running from bullies.
I had a flash of my whole life, of my childhood, my youth, getting beaten.
Im telling you that because I love him so much.
It was a flood of pain.
Did you read theChicago Tribunes coverage of it?I didnt read any of it.
I was too busy putting out fires.
What would the scenario look like of him telling the truth?We werent there.
I cant judge him.
Thats only for the fucking lady or man with that black robe and God.
It was affecting my spirit and other shows, everything.
You are a showman and a provocateur.
If he didnt do it, hed be Martin Luther King right now.
Hed be some sort of god.
You mean if hed gotten away with it?
In the first episode ofEmpire, we learn that Lucious Lyon has ALS, a terminal disease.
Eventually, we find out it was a bad diagnosis.
But wasnt it a bad idea to announce that your leading man has to die?
Directly after the pilot, I was supposed to go off to do Richard Pryorwith Mike Epps.
I just assumed somebody would take over the show.
So you didnt worry about what was going to happen to him?No.
There was no show without Lucious.
Are you kidding me?
Making Terrence Howard a lead in a online grid show seems like a risky call.
Hes somebody who has been described for 20 years as difficult.Hes one of my best friends.
And I can count on my hands how many friends I have.
I do believe that he believes it, so maybe its not a show.
So I protect him, because hes like my brother and I trust him.
I trust him with my life.
Hes a great actor, but he was alsoaccused of hitting womenon at least six separate occasions.
Should Terrence have kept his show, considering what hed been accused of?I have no comment.
I have nothing really to say about that.
Jeffrey Tambor and Kevin Spacey lost their shows after they were accused of improprieties.
Should they have lost their shows, then?I dont know of the Jeffrey Tambor thing.
I do know of Kevin Spacey firsthand, and Im happy that he got his comeuppance.
It was a little surprising to learn that Fox was endingEmpire.
But come on, man.
I think that its been a good run.Empirein its current iteration may be over, butEmpireis far from over.
That is so confusing.Im sorry.
And if it doesnt, thenEmpiremay not very well be over.
But the intent is to have our last season with a great spinoff.
I dont know if that makes any sense at all.
Its not just my show.
Clearly, theres obvious stuff going on.
Like a whitewashing of the data pipe schedule?I think its very obvious.
I was disturbed by it.
Any fool could sure see where thats going.
Did something like that actually happen to you?Oh yeah, it happened.
I read an early profile of you when you were directing your first film,Shadowboxer.
Did you spend a lot of time in situations like that?Yeah.
Was that lonely, or did you actually enjoy it?It was great.
You know, God really blessed me when I went to that all-white school.
I never experienced racism.
I didnt experience racism until way into my adulthood.
And then when I experienced it, because of the trash-can experience, I compartmentalized.
I pretended it didnt exist.
They wouldnt have given me money.
They really trusted me.
But most of the financiers that have supported my mission so far have been white.
There was a period early in your career when you were managing actors.
But there were not opportunities for her.
There were several black Meryl Streeps around.
Like who?Oh my God.
Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Pearl Bailey.
The real ka-banger was Dorothy Dandridge, who just didnt get the opportunity.
I got tired of telling people that there werent any jobs for them except pimps and drug dealers.
Didnt you represent Morgan Freeman for a period as well?No.
Well, a little bit, yes.
And what a moment.
Cynthia Robinson Oredugba, the first female black agent at William Morris, and I worked with him.
What happened?I was high.
Ill leave it at that.
So it was nothing Morgan did.
Was it something you did?I did something.
It was a moment.
It had to do with chicken wings.
I really dont want to talk about it.
I wanted my life, you know?
Bob Fosse was a real hero of mine, and I watchedAll That Jazzover and over again.
I remember watching that film and calling Patti LaBelle early in the morning that night, a little high.
Not a little high, a lot high.
And she asked, Do you know Jesus?
I said a prayer, and I think that was the end of my drugs.
When I was watchingFosse/Verdon, I actually thought about how youve said you idolized Fosse.Can I tell you something?
When I found out [FX was] doing [Fosse/Verdon], I cried like a baby.
But Im doingSammy Davis Jr.,the same sort of vein as that.
But to me, Fosse is an idol, idol, idol.
Fosse famously had a drug problem.
And he had great success but was forever miserable and unsatisfied, just as youve often said you are.
He dropped dead at 60.
Does it give you any perspective?But Im not miserable.
I hate fucking being sober.
Its a fucking snooze.
You dont drink, either?I dont do anything.
Its really hard, but believe me, Ive done enough for everybody.
And until I was 22, I had to get drunk to actually go through with the process.
And then the drug scene came.
And then all your friends start dying of AIDS.
You have to elicit erotic feelings, you have to elicit laughter, you have to elicit the sadness.
You have to feel the human condition.
And I remember feeling a lot of fucking men and women were uncomfortable.
But a lot of babies were made that night, I bet.
Was the scene as written as raw as it was onscreen?Not really.
But why you got to ask me a question like that?
Im honestly just curious.
I let curiosity be my guide.Youre trying to set me up.
Well, its a black woman having graphic sex with a racist white man.
I dont understand why you dont understand that.
I was just thinking about Halle Berry.
She won an Oscar it was very emotional, she thanked Dorothy Dandridge and then kind of disappeared.
I just wondered if she ultimately lost some respect in Hollywood because of that scene.Shes worked nonstop.
She has a huge movie coming out,John Wick.
No, the scene wasnt written that way.
A lot of scenes arent written the way you see them ultimately.
But I dont think she got the Oscar for that scene.
She got the Oscar for the beginning of that scene, the pain that she was in.
We wanted to explore the pain.
At least for me, I explore pain through sex, you know?
When Im in pain, thats the only thing that sort of did it for me.
Im best friends with her, so I gotta ask her the hell was that about.
That quote struck me as representing the soul of a true producer.Yeah.
I grew up around hustlers.
Part of that hustle was hustling the money for my art.
You are known for being really good at getting people to give you money for movies.
How do you do that?You tell them, This is what Im doing.
This is what youre going to get back.
Do you believe in me?
Here are the actors.
just give me the money.
I mean, youve got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.
People respond to that?Im not threatening.
I think people can see my heart.
People know theres no cloak and mirrors.
What could have happened?I could have been killed.
Who might have killed you?Never mind that.
Thats kind of awkward.I mean, you do what youve got to do.
Did you feel threatened?Not at all.
Ive been in worse scenarios.
But I learned a really valuable lesson from that.
We may have a law, but the law that created me is a different law.
Do you know what I mean?
Its a different kind of Hollywood law.
He believed in me when many people didnt.
WhenShadowboxercame out in 2005,it was savaged by critics.That must have been shattering.
Did it make it more difficult for you to have the will to direct again?Thats for sure.
I thought that was the meanest thing ever.
But I knew that many people, and many, many, many black people, loved that film.
If I had been European, it wouldve been hailed as, you know, something special.
You followed it withPrecious.
But when we showed it at Sundance, it was a completely different reaction.
Barbara Bush sent me a personal letter saying, Preciousis my movie, and we became friendly.
I was just so blown away.
I watchPreciousand I laugh.
Seriously?I do.
I havent seen it in years, but I just hollered from beginning to end.
Because thats what we do.
Its so brutal and sad.
Laughings an appropriate reaction to that movie?No, its not.
Its more like,Oh my God.
Someones telling our secrets.
Its so painful that you have to laugh.
Because if you sit with it, youll fucking be in a mental institution.
Its like the inverse of the Huxtables, and it seems a little dangerous.I felt like that.
It was like I was buck naked on the toilet and everybody was watching me.
It was my soul.
The Weinstein Company releasedThe Butler.
I knew what I was walking into.
So we had mutual respect for each other.
By Dont fuck with me, did you mean dont fuck with my movie?
Hes known as Harvey Scissorhands.Dont touch my movie.
And unlike many other people, I got every penny that Im owed from him.
The Butlerwas the kind of movie sometimes referred to as Oscar bait.
Cmon.If you want to talk about awards, I didnt complain when nobody was nominated inEmpire.
Terrence and Taraji [P. Henson]?
Were talking about fucking Brando and Streep.
But I saw your Instagram post about the Emmys whenEmpirewasnt nominated after season one.What did I say?
Sometimes I get angry.
Then Bigelow won it.
Then that whole he-should-have-been-nominated thing started.
Everybody kept saying black people deserve it.
I dont think I deserve anything.
My path has opened the door for this whole renaissance that is happening.
The Butlerwas in 2014.
#OscarsSoWhite, of which you were vocally critical, came a year later.
That year, all 20 actors nominated in acting categories were white, which hadnt happened since 1998.
Did you just think there was no black actor deserving of a nomination?Thats a loaded question.
It wasnt that I was anti-#OscarSoWhite; I just thought it was being handled all wrong.
You suck … Shes used to being in control, so it was liberating for her.
The way you say that sounds disrespectful.
It wasnt said with the disrespectful tone you just said to me.
Did you ever think she was seriously considering running for president?I begged her to!
Im sure I was one of many people doing it.
And then she stopped texting me.
Then I left her alone.
The Butlerwas famous for having 41 producers.Whatever it takes.
Well, at that time it was accurate.
Now it seems theres some white guilt going on thats making some very untalented people famous.
Right now everybodys trying to make up for what they justifiably should be making up for.
You seem to be referencing something specific.Im referencing many somethings.
Spike Lee was obviously pissed thatGreen Bookwon the Best Picture Oscar.
Did you feel the same?I lovedGreen Book.
I used to manage the writer, Nick Vallelonga, but I couldnt find him a job.
He wanted me to direct it, but he [was unable to get in touch with] me.
Unbeknownst to me, he not only wanted me to direct the movie but to star in it.
Id never even known about it.
I could never act.
He wanted me to star as the gay guy.
There was a great deal of anger about that picture that I never quite understood.
It felt like a generational issue.Guess what?
Get the fuck over it.
We aint killing motherfuckers.
I think they were making too much of it.
As a black man, he would never have stepped into a place that wasnt safe as an artist.
And thats what people are forgetting.
Its a topic you have expressed strong opinions about.
It got very awkward at a 2015 roundtable of showrunners that you participated in forThe Hollywood Reporter.It wasnt awkward.
It seemed awkward.It was awkward after.
One guy was upset.
House of Cards Beau Willimon, right?
I wasnt there to start a fight.
I was just actually curious.
Are you kidding me?
Im not that smart.
I dont know how to take on the white man.
You said at the roundtable, Black people hate white people writing for black people.
As a director, I dont get credit on the writing.
You just take that story and you got to make it yours.
You cannot understand the African-American experience unless you are African-American.
I had to make the situations mine.
What I loved about Ilene was that she knew what she didnt know.
She surrounded herself with people that were of the culture.
And she deferred to me when it came to anything about the show.
In a recent interview, you said youre going to get back into theEmpirewriters room and fuck shit up.
Does that mean youve been disappointed?A couple years ago, I was terribly disappointed.
I thought it was not good.
But it wasnt my look.
There were things with Cookies hair, with lines that didnt feel right.
And I just said, Oh my God, what the fuck is this?
Because Im so fanatical about what I want you to see onscreen.
And my aunt slapped the shit out of me.
What the fuck did you take me to see this shit for?
So my mother got a taste of what was in my head at an early age.
I really reached the pinnacle withPreciousandThe Paperboy.
So shes literally like, Can you just shut these women up?
I dont thinkPreciouswould be allowed to be made now.
I dont even know how it would be received.
We usedretard,we usedMongoloid.
Yes, hearing Preciouss baby called Mongo is pretty shocking.
Didnt your mother say, Why cant you make movies like Tyler Perry?
Its a very Jewish-mother thing to say.She did.
She loves Tyler Perry.
I really didThe Butlerfor her.
It took everything I had to restrain myself to do that PG-13 film.
It felt like I was handcuffed.
I can keep the camera still.
Its fucking like watching molasses dry, but I can.
Your movies can be pretty raw.
Just a few minutes intoShadowboxer, a mobster shoves a broken pool cue into a guys ass.
I cant imagine.Its no different than getting money from people.
I said, Nic, you trust me so bad, Im going to give you everything I have.
And she got a SAG nomination for it, too.
She deserved more, but I dont think people saw that film.
They lied that they booedPaperboyin Cannes.
It was a 23-minute standing ovation.
But getting booed doesnt necessarily mean failure at Cannes.Wild at Heartwas booed and then got the Palme dOr.
Thats just so twisted, isnt it?Yeah, and I didnt hear a boo at all.
It was a 15-minute standing ovation.
You leave the theater, you go outside, you start crying.
Its better than any award, thats for sure.
Its better than any high that Ive ever fucking been on.
That was a sabotaging thing.
Because I was a little ahead of the time, ahead of the curve.
Im always ahead of the curve.
