Why Director Lee Daniels Describes Empire as "Absolutely the Worst Experience"

Lee Daniels is not holding anything back. 

The Precious director recently got candid about his time as the creator, writer and producer of FOX's Empire, saying that he had a "horrible" time on the show and only did it because he was curious about answering "to suits."

"I wanted to know what that experience was like," he told Film Stage in an interview published Sept. 4, noting that all of his productions up to that point had been independent. "All of my friends, they get notes and s--t. And I'm like, 'What is that like?!'"

As Daniels noted, while he "only did Empire just so I could see what that experience was like," he is hoping to never work under circumstances like that again.

"Absolutely the worst experience," he said of his time on the show. "Horrible!"

However, there was one positive that came from Empire, which ran on FOX from 2015 to 2020: "Money, money, money."

"I was able to put my kids through college and s--t," he added. "So that in itself was worth it."

E! News has reached out to FOX for comment, but has not heard back.

And although Empire—which starred Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson—had a lasting effect on other TV shows and movies, the Paper Boy director admits he didn't see the vision at the time.

"I didn't understand what we were doing when I made Empire," he shared. "I really didn't. I was too busy about Cookie's hat and the music hat I was trying to get to realize that I was shifting, literally, the culture. That I had single-handedly shifted it with my show."

He added, "There wouldn't have been a Black Panther, that there wouldn't have been an Insecure. There wouldn't have been a Black-ish. All of that s--t happened because I did what I did."

Still, even with the impact he feels he's made, when it comes to his future projects—like his latest film for Netflix, The Deliverance—he's only focusing on ones where he is the ultimate deciding factor.

"I have final cut at Netflix," he explained, "because otherwise I wasn't interested in doing the film."

But the Oscar nominee did find himself butting heads with the streamer at times, as he said Netflix asked for more "tension" in the horror film—which Daniels did finally relent to.

"I gave up a little bit and just said, 'Okay, let me just give them what they want a little bit because it's a Lee Daniels film, but it's also a Netflix film,'" he said. "I sold out a little bit because we're not in the world of cinema. We're in the world of clicks where, if they're not invested in the first five or ten minutes, they'll turn that s--t off."

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