L
ATELY, Lee Daniels has been caught up in
TV land. The award-winning director and
producer, known for his work on films like
Monster’s Ball, Precious and Lee Daniels’ The
Butler, has been focused on TV, executive-producing
two series, Empire and Star, leaving little time for
much else. “I’d forgotten what it was like to do a film,
and I’d forgotten that’s where I come from,” says
Daniels, 61. “I’m a filmmaker ultimately.... I have
complete control over my films, whereas in televi-
sion, I don’t. It’s by committee.”
This month Daniels returns to filmmaking with
The United States vs. Billie Holiday, the first movie
he’s directed in over seven years. The film is based
on Johann Hari’s 2015 book, Chasing the Scream: The
First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, and tells
the story of how the jazz singer and civil rights icon,
who was also a heroin addict, was targeted by the
Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and recounts the affair
she had with federal agent Jimmy Fletcher (played by
Trevante Rhodes). Daniels, whose films often contain
autobiographical aspects, says that going into the
project, he didn’t know he had so much of Holiday in
himself. (He’s referring to Holiday as a fellow artist,
but he’s spoken about his sobriety and his own strug-
gles with drugs and alcohol in the past, too.)
These days, Daniels leads an enviably healthy life-
style: daily meditation, hiking and vitamin taking, as
well as trying out intermittent fasting to lose the few
pounds he packed on earlier in the pandemic. He
spoke to WSJ. about his favorite coffee drink, the last
thing he does before he goes to bed and the unex-
pected movie that lifted his spirits.>WSJ. MAGAZINE 95ABIDE WITH LEE
Daniels, 61, at home in
Los Angeles, wearing
his own Maison
Margiela pajamas. After
years of focusing on his
various TV projects,
he’s returned to his first
love: movies.BY LANE FLORSHEIM
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN CHUNGThe director and producer
of the movie The United Statesvs. Billie Holiday wakes at 7,
prays, meditates, hikes in L.A.’sFranklin Canyon Park, works out
and saunas—and that’s all beforebeginning work for the day.
LEE DANIELS
MY MONDAY MORNINGthe exchange.
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