Interview: Director Lee Daniels Entitles ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’

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CHICAGO – Director Lee Daniels is on a mission of education. With now two generations removed from the height of the 1960s civil rights movement, Daniels hopes to revive and highlight that history in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” – the sensitive and emotional story of one family’s journey through the winds of change.

The story behind the unusual title designation – the addition of Lee Daniels’ name – was necessary because of another film entitled “The Butler” from 1916. Daniels’ version encompasses 80 years in America through a crucial time for African Americans, as it follows the path of a butler – portrayed by Forest Whitaker – as he makes it to the highest level of his profession, a job at the White House. As Whitaker’s character serves presidents from Eisenhower to Reagan, his is a father to a son who is right in the middle of the 1960s Freedom Riders, lunch counter sit-ins and the Panther Party.

Director Lee Daniels of ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler,’ in Chicago on July 31, 2013 Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

This is HollywoodChicago.com’s second interview with Lee Daniels. The first was in 2009, during the Chicago International Film Festival release of “Precious.” The high profile film put Daniels into the spotlight, but after being unable to fund a feature film about the Selma, Alabama, civil rights riots, he focused his energies on last year’s “The Paperboy.” His insight to “Lee Daniel’s The Butler,” speaks to his commitment to remembering the heroes of the fight for civil equality.

HollywoodChicago.com: You have created an historic epic. What theme or element did you want to get completely right as to communicate your vision for the film?

Lee Daniels: Who was right? Was it the butler who passively served white people and got them to trust him. Can we move forward as African Americans that way? Or was it the butler’s son, who was out peacefully marching and progressively became militant. Who was right? I don’t know if there was a ‘right.’ I think they were both right. I want the audience to walk away realizing there was no ‘right’ in the civil rights movement.

There were also white people who stood by black people. We always assume it was just an African American experience. But there were white people who died because so many blacks were afraid to march, and people were encouraged by that support.

HollywoodChicago.com: In doing all the preparation and research regarding the civil rights movement and the 1960s, which fact or emotion penetration your soul most acutely, and ended up within the context of your production?

Daniels: That these kids could die for a cause. I don’t know if I could die for a cause – I could die for my kids, I could take a bullet for my kids – but I don’t think I could die for a cause. ‘That’s okay, I don’t need to vote.’ Because I’m not going to take a bullet for my right to vote. These activists were truly heroes.

HollywoodChicago.com: Tell me about your collaboration with the great Forest Whitaker. What key element of his performance preparation did you both agree on, and how did it most impress you while filming his scenes?

Daniels: His humility is what I walk away with, when I think of him and my work experience with him. He comes with all of the awards a couple times over, but he was here to serve my vision, and it always was with a deference to that. He would ask me constantly if he was doing it correctly for me. It was terrifyingly humble, it made me understand what great actors are all about. That attitude had a trickle-down effect as well, to that huge cast I had. It was really that attitude, and him, that was the leader of the atmosphere. I thank him, and I’m profusely in his debt.

HollywoodChicago.com: With the number of different and familiar stars, the film at times feels like the star studded event pictures like ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘King of Kings.’ What was your intention in casting familiar faces as the Presidents and the Gaines family, and do you think it gives the film a different feel, than perhaps casting unknowns?

Daniels: Yeah, I felt that I had a choice. To go for these seven Academy Award winners, which in essence was to do anything to get the audience to see this film. It was such an important story, and the script spoke to all of the actors that came in to lose money – because they all lost money working for me. No studio wanted to do this movie. And they all came in with the same attitude as Forest Whitaker, that the humility was to serve the material. It was a complete honor.

HollywoodChicago.com: Oprah Winfrey turns in a complete and mature performance as Gloria, and at the same time looked like she was in complete command of the role. What part of Gloria did she absolutely relate to, which convinced her to do her first major role since 1998?

Daniels: She loved the complexity of the role, that she just wasn’t a woman sitting by her husband’s character [she was the wife of ‘The Butler], as oftentimes women are written. Her character also ages, and we don’t know at times which side she is on. The complexity of that, and whether she was going to have an affair or another drink, was what appealed to her. For women of that age – forget even just African American women – it’s hard to find material like that. I think that is what attracted her to the role.

On Set with the Director in ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’ Photo credit: The Weinstein Company

HollywoodChicago.com: At what point did you own life intersect with the civil rights era, as far as what you remembered and how you felt about the role of African Americans in both subservient positions and in the civil rights leadership?

Daniels: My neighbor was a butler. I called him Uncle Monroe, who lived two houses down from me when I was a kid, and was the butler for the owner of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team. I thought of him a lot when I shot the film.

But I did the film ultimately because I needed to understand why it was, and why it has been all my life, that when I walk into stores I am followed and that I’m profiled. It slowly chips away at the spirit of a person, it really makes us feel – in a very subliminal way - inferior. It’s subliminal, powerful, insidious, and it can define your character.

HollywoodChicago.com: Do you remember the assassination of Dr. King?

Daniels: I do. Vividly, even though I was only nine years old.

HollywoodChicago.com: President Obama recently gave an eloquent summary of the societal slights that African American men receive and eventually have to confront. How did you reconcile with that slight as you were growing up, and how do you find a place in human nature between anger and love for your fellow human beings in perpetuating such an unfair situation?

Daniels: Here’s the thing, I wouldn’t have anybody as a friend if they felt a need to follow me in a store. I have a large percentage of white friends, but the truth is racism exists. And until Obama expressed what he did, it almost seemed politically incorrect to even bring up racism. I’d rather not talk about my plight as an African American filmmaker in Hollywood, and why films like this have trouble getting the green light. My attitude becomes, ‘I want you to like me, so let’s not talk about it.’ Hopefully the film will help to rip the scab off the wound we’ve not been able to talk about.

HollywoodChicago.com: How does the story of ‘Precious’ have roots in the desperate times and challenges of African Americans in the 20th Century. To what element of that century does the character of Precious get both her sadness and her triumph?

Daniels: She is very much a part of the circumstance of the past. We didn’t ask – as a people – to be brought over here, or laws that prevented us from doing normal things. We are told to ‘get over it,’ or ‘you have a black president.’ What are they talking about? Most of my family still live in the projects, and are still in poverty.

This is really my first time in talking about this, I finished the film two days ago. So this only my second press stop. It’s hard to analyze it, because it’s so serious for me. It’s so very personal on so many levels. How easy for us to forget the struggle, to sweep that shit under the carpet. That can never happen with me.

Oprah Winfrey Portrays the Wife of Forest Whitaker’s Character in ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’ Photo credit: The Weinstein Company

HollywoodChicago.com: Your last film,‘The Paperboy,’ was a peculiar triumph. What were you celebrating in the style of that film, and what pleased you about how far the actors were willing to go in communicating such an unusual story?

Daniels: I was supposed to do a film called ‘Selma,’ which was going to deal with the clash between Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson. I couldn’t get it green lit, another African American story that I couldn’t get financed. So ‘The Paperboy’ was my second choice, which Pedro Almodóvar was going to direct. I wanted to show that I could do something different, with a wild story that was out of control. All the actors were into it, and I studied all the late 1960s, early 1970s films to get a feel for the atmosphere.

We was an homage to that era, and had a good time doing it. I found that the audience either got it or didn’t get it. I think it’s one of Nicole Kidman’s best performances to date. Who would have thought that Zac Efron would do such a role? And John Cusack, he’s a maniac.

HollywoodChicago.com: And he did a great Richard Nixon in ‘The Butler.’

Daniels: He was so into it, because what he did to Forest was crazy. There was a scene when Cecil brings a drink to Nixon, ‘I have your martini, Mr. President.’ I yell action, the line comes, and Cusack just sits there for three-four-five minutes, he’s still just listening to tapes with his hands trembling. That was a long time to be sitting there, wasting my film. [laughs] Finally, John looks up and gives a gutteral ‘Wha?’ sound, and I thought he was a goddamn genius. He’s nuts, but it was some of the best acting I’ve ever seen. We are a Molotov Cocktail when we get together.

HollywoodChicago.com: We were born 5 months apart. What do you think are the challenges of our generation, given that we came of age after the baby boomer era, the 1960s and Viet Nam. What do our experiences in history teach us about the world?

Daniels: Can I tell you I’ve never been more terrified about the state of the world? One, I don’t see an answer to racism happening in our lifetime. That is very unsettling to me. In a global sense, I think the world is dying.

I just miss watching Mayberry and ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’ [laughs]

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com