"I've fought for everything that I have gotten." Empire's Lee Daniels talks about how he became a Star

Lee Daniels has a career story that you wouldn't believe if you saw it in a Hollywood biopic. He was raised in Philadelphia's rough southwest side and had it worse at home. Daniels' father, a police officer, regularly verbally and physically abused the young Lee, beating him because of his sexual orientation. After high school, Daniels went to college for a year, dropped out and moved to Hollywood. There, he landed a receptionist job at a nursing-placement firm, but soon quit to start his own competing home-healthcare company. At one point, Daniels was managing some 500 nurses.

Daniels, just 21, was more successful than he'd ever dreamed. Once homeless, he now dressed in Armani and drove a Porsche. But his dream wasn't to make it nursing. It was to make it Hollywood. One nursing contact led him to the entertainment industry, where he began to build up a career: first casting agent, then manager and on to producer, director.

At 56, Daniels is now a power player in Hollywood. His movies Precious and The Butler didn't follow Hollywood's formula — you couldn't find one superhero or sequel-worthy character in either — but scored Oscar nominations and outsized profits. (Lee directed and co-produced Precious for $10 million; it grossed $63 million. The Butler did similarly well: $175 million in box office on a $30 million budget.)

In 2015, he took his voice to TV for the first time, co-creating the family-and-business drama Empire for Fox. The Hollywood Reporter wasn't content to call the series just a surprise hit, but a "full-blown cultural phenomenon." The show managed to defy industry norms. Instead of seeing spikes and drops, it's takes on family and society gained it more and more fans with every show — and those fans were younger and more social. Advertisers couldn't get enough: a 30-second spot for the second season premier was rumored to command $750,000. (Now in it's third season, Empire's ratings have started to flag.)

Tonight, Lee is taking on the music industry again with the debut of Star, a new Fox series that he co-created. He dropped by LinkedIn's NYC offices to talk about his topics, his career path, his take on Hollywood's sense of entitlement and his surprising next act.

Here's an edited excerpt from the video:

On why he uses business as a backdrop to tell his stories:

It's what I know. Business, for me, could be pimping. Business, for me, could be drug dealing. What defines business? My family, they were all businessmen, so to speak. If you look at Empire, you see that. For [Star], it's my business. It's the business of show. This show is about what happened to me when I first came to Hollywood, which I never talk about.

On his unusual path to Hollywood

I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew that at 8 years old I read "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and I came home to the stoops of the projects, and I had my friends out reading the play. There were no directors or producers that I had to look up to. There were no mentors. I come from a family in a neighborhood where most people sold drugs, or dealt in an environment that wasn't legal.

I then took that hustle into Hollywood, because it's all I knew. It was in my DNA to survive. My earliest memories are of my good friend being shot at five, and another friend being shot at 10, and I was right there with them.

I think that I escaped through my work. I went to Hollywood with literally $7 in my pocket, from St. Charles, Mo., on a bus.

I was homeless, lived in the back of a church, did theater to get my keep. I was looking in the newspaper, because at that time they had classifieds and I said, "Okay, receptionist. I'll do that while I'm writing" — knowing that I'm going to write. I remember going in and getting a job as a nursing agency receptionist. Pretty soon, I was bumped up to the manager of the company. A year into it, I was like I can do this on my own. And I did.

That bloomed into this incredible business. A producer came in once ... and he says, "Who are you?" I said, "I'm Lee Daniels," and I'm this 21-year-old black kid taking care of his dying mother. He said, "What do you really want to do?" I said, "I direct theater." He said, "Why don't you come down and I'm doing a movie called Purple Rain."

The next day I gave up my nursing agency. I sold it and made several million dollars. I sold it on the spot. I became a PA. I walked on a lot at Warner Bros., and the rest is history.

On continuing to pursue his film ideas despite years of rejection

I think that, again, it goes back to when I was a kid watching people die, and living the AIDS crisis. That I don't have HIV is a miracle from God. When you are able to look death in the eye and watch a child, my kids, come into life, birth, I think that it gives you the courage to know that there is a higher spirit. This gift is not mine. It's given to me. This gift does not belong to me, I'm only a vessel and I'm to pass it on to whoever.

On race in the entertainment industry

What I don't like is when people call the race card, when people say, "Oh, I should have an Oscar, or I should have an Emmy, or I should have something because of racism." You fight for everything. I don't want to hear that anybody owes me anything because I'm black. America don't owe me shit because I'm black. Hollywood don't owe me shit. I owe me. I've fought for everything that I have gotten.

I address the race issue by saying: Go out and prove yourself. Go out and do your thing. Don't not live the American dream.

The stacks were stacked against me in that I don't have a family that comes from Hollywood, and that's sort of the in right there. You have to be in, and I certainly didn't have an education. I'm a statistic, truly.

On how he gets people to back his ideas

I'm hitting the human condition, I'm hitting home. You know when you walk away from me, that every syllable out of my mouth is going to affect you and touch you with honesty, even if it's making you uncomfortable. "You know one thing? I think I may want to invest in him."

I think people are conditioned to think that they're wrong. People are conditioned to accept No.

On what's next

I want to teach. Again, it's not my gift; it's to pass on. And I think soon, and very soon, I'll be able to be comfortable financially enough to teach. I have a film school right now that David O. Russell and I have worked close together, called the Ghetto Film School. We just opened one in LA, and in the Bronx. It's passing it on, it's teaching kids that don't have the wherewithal how to hold a camera. I didn't go to school, and I regret that.