By Dana Goldstein, Campus ProgressWednesday August 9, 2006
Lee Daniels’ films challenge boundaries: that between black and white, sex and violence, tragedy and love. As the producer of “Monster’s Ball,” Daniels brought to the big screen a story of racism, the death penalty, and romance in the rural South. Halle Berry became the first African-American woman ever to win a best actress Oscar for her starring role in the film. Now Daniels has stepped behind the camera as director of “Shadowboxer,” a surreal hit man film built around an interracial, quasi-incestuous relationship between Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Dame Helen Mirren. The premise might seem bizarre, but “Shadowboxer,” through scenes of unflinching violence and beauty, casts a powerful spell. Daniels talked with Campus Progress about sex scenes, racial politics, and the understated gay aesthetic of his films.
Interracial romance is a theme in your work. What attracts you to such stories?
With all my films, I have a tendency to cast colorblind, and this movie, it was cast colorblind. It just so happened that it was interracial. Originally it was Diana Ross [playing the role of Rose], and then Helen Mirren stepped in. I mean, I just find the best actor for the role. Now that might have something to do with the fact that I’m black and I’m a filmmaker, and I always try to give everybody of color a chance. But I give the best actor available the job, because in life, everybody is mixed up with everybody, and it’s not cookie cutter the way Hollywood pretends it to be.
I remember reading that there was controversy over you casting Mo’Nique in her role, since the character of Precious was originally intended to be an anorexic white woman, not a plus-sized black woman. The screenwriter was very angry about that choice and withdrew his name from the project. Was that another instance of you casting colorblind?
It was just a case of “may the best actor get the job.”
In both “Monster’s Ball” and in “Shadowboxer,” there seems to be a theme of using sex to represent escape and redemption. There’s something about your sex scenes that seem so raw and real, because they’re not what we’re used to seeing on the screen. How do you coax those performances out of your actors, and is it really challenging?
Again, I try to project as much honesty as I can on sex scenes, because I think that sex is an integral part of human nature, and there’s nothing to be ashamed about. And I think that we have a tendency—not that I want to be in your face, and I don’t really want to see pornography—but I think that we need to understand the connection between human suffering and sex, and that sex isn’t just sex for pleasure.
In the theater that I saw the film in, there was a lot of sort of giggling or even comments about the age difference between Mikey and Rose.
Really? Like in a bad way?
People were like, “Get it on, Grandma!” and stuff like that.
I heard that too! People were like, “Go Grannie, go grannie!” I didn’t know what to make of that. Am I gonna be offended by this? How do I take that?
I had the opposite reaction. Going into it, I thought I was going to feel weird about the age difference, but then Helen Mirren was very sexy in the role. So I was wondering if you could talk about the reactions you’re hearing.
Well, what I’m hearing is all over the place. You know, some people love it, some people hate it. But that’s been with my movies all across the board. Some people loathe it. And when they loathe it, they go on and on about it, and then I know that I’ve struck a chord. They could just say, “Oh, this is terrible.” But they go into into detail, and then they go for the jugular. And I remember calling my friend Lenny Kravitz, because I’m working with him, and saying, “Why are people either adulating over this film or they’re like going for the jugular?” And he said, “It’s because you evoked something.” There’s no gray area. There’s no, “Oh, this is okay.” You walk away thinking about the film. It evokes an emotion. And I think that’s what cinema is about—good cinema. You walk away thinking, “God dang it, why’d I pay good money for this, I hated it. Can you believe he had the nerve?!” Or you go, “Oh wow.”
“Shadowboxer” is less explicitly political than “Monster’s Ball,” which dealt with the intersection of racial and sexual politics in the rural south. But in “Shadowboxer,” the character of Rose comes from this radical activist background, and turns to crime when she becomes frustrated by her inability to make the world a better place.
All of the characters that I have in all of my films are people that I understand, and know, and identify with. So these are all people that I personally know. Personally. There was a lady that lived around the corner from me when I was growing up, she was a Black Panther—I grew up in the sixties and the seventies. And she was a great lady and through a series of events, her life just twirled out [of control]. I called her my black Patty Hearst, because she really got caught up and before you know it, she killed a couple of people. She started out from a really great place and through a series of events, she got strung out. So, of course, Helen Mirren is white. I’m black, and I sort of took creative liberty.
You’re a gay filmmaker, but we haven’t really seen any gay characters in your films. Do you think those are stories you’re going to want to bring to the screen in future projects?
Actually, I was one of the producers on “ Brokeback Mountain.” It ended up that I couldn’t get the movie made, so I didn’t produce the movie. But it was with me for awhile. I do feel that there is a gay sensibility in all of my films. There’s something in there. You’ve got a little bit of “Valley of the Dolls,” especially this one I directed, you see more of a taste, I should say, that there is an affinity toward men’s asses and penises—if you look closely.
