The saying goes to write what you know, and it looks like Lee Daniels is going to do just that for an upcoming project. The director of “Precious,” “The Paperboy,” and “The Butler,” and one of the creative forces behind the TV hit “Empire,” has always tended to favor tales with lots emotional and dramatic color, but it appears his own life has enough twists and turns to be worthy of a movie itself, and a musical no less. And Daniels couldn’t help sharing what he’s working on with Billboard.
“My publicist will kill me, but I’m in talks about doing a musical film about my life. I’ve had a pretty interesting life. I’ve come from the projects. I’ve been homeless. It’ll have original music and sort of be like Fellini’s ‘8 1/2‘ or ‘All That Jazz,’ ” the director said.
You can’t blame the guy for reaching high, and with “La La Land” set to make everyone fall in love with musicals again, certainly the timing couldn’t be better. And Daniels’ background and journey from Philadelphia to Hollywood, is definitely filled with plenty of material to work with. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about his early life:
Daniels was born on Christmas Eve, 1959, the son of Clara Watson and William L. Daniels, in Philadelphia. He graduated from upscale, suburban Radnor High School in 1978, and then Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. He couldn’t afford film school, so he started in a liberal arts college in Missouri but realized it wasn’t for him, and started working as a receptionist in a nursing agency in California. Realizing he could do it on his own, he quit the job and started his own agency. At the age of 21, his company had 5000 nurses affiliated with it. He sold the company and went to work casting actors using his skills from ‘casting’ nurses. He began his career in entertainment as a casting director and manager after a chance meeting with a Hollywood producer, working on such projects as Under the Cherry Moon and Purple Rain. He continued managing talent. The documentary My Big Break features Daniels early in his career when he was managing actor Wes Bentley who starred as Ricky Fitts in American Beauty. In the documentary, Daniels comments on Bentley’s reluctance to capitalize on his newfound celebrity status.
Lee’s father, Philadelphia police officer William Daniels, was, as Daniels says, “killed in the line of duty” when Lee was a teenager, in 1975. Daniels has also been very open about the fact that his father was violent and physically abusive towards him, and even tried “to beat it [being gay] out of me.”
So a project to keep an eye on, and it seems like one Daniels is quite excited about it too. And with nothing else seemingly brewing on the feature front, I would assume this is what he wants to be working on next.