Lee Daniels is not holding back as he talks about his experience making Empire, calling it “absolutely the worst experience.”
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During a recent interview to promote his new Netflix horror film The Deliverance, Daniels told The Film Stage that his time making the popular Fox series left a lot to be desired.
“I only did Empire just so I could see what that experience was like,” he told the outlet.
“Horrible. Absolutely the worst experience. Horrible!” Daniels revealed. “But guess what? F***ing that money, money, money! I was able to put my kids through college and s**t.”
This might come as a shock to a lot of fans who watched Empire for six seasons, during which it received pretty unanimously positive reviews. The series even once earned the title of “the most valuable show on broadcast TV,” according to Entertainment Weekly.
As for Lee Daniels, specifically, it’s undeniable that the show boosted his career into a completely new realm, but even so, he maintains that it was the money “in itself” that made the experience “worth it.”
“When I got into television, I really just wanted to be able to answer to suits. I wanted to know what that experience was like,” Daniels explained. “All of my friends, they get notes and s**t. And I’m like, “What is that like?!” You know what I mean? Because every film of mine had been independent. All of my s**t is independent. You know, my first movie was developed with drug money. Monster’s Ball. We won the first Black woman an Oscar. Every one of my films has been independently financed where I’m able to…”
After experiencing “answer[ing] to suits” during his television days, Lee told the outlet that the only way he was going to make The Deliverance was if Netflix gave him the final cut.
“I have final cut at Netflix because otherwise I wasn’t interested in doing the film,” he explained. “But they wanted––’they’ meaning Netflix––wanted jump scares every second. And I did not know how to do that. And I said, ‘Listen, man, I can’t do this. I don’t know how… it does not compute.’ My favorite movies were The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen.”
If you haven’t already seen it, check out the trailer for The Deliverance down below: