When Lee Daniels was eight years old, he came across a copy Edward Albee's Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf that featured a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on its cover. Flipping through the pages, Daniels realized that his purpose in life was to direct characters like those in the Albee's play. After years managing actors, Daniels had his directorial breakout in 2001 with Monster’s Ball, for which Halle Berry became the first Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. As a producer, director, and screenwriter, Daniels has since turned out celebrated movies and television shows such as from Precious and Empire, and, most recently, the haunting thriller The Deliverance. On this week’s episode of Table for Two, Daniels joins host Bruce Bozzi to discuss how his experience as a gay man influences his work, how his adopted children saved his life, and the motivation behind a new cop procedural he’s currently writing.

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