‘Empire’ co-creator Lee Daniels recently revealed that working on the show was ‘absolutely the worst experience.’
‘Empire’ was a huge success on Fox and ran for six seasons from 2015 to 2020, but Daniels recently told The Film Stage that he didn’t enjoy making it.
Daniels explained that before ‘Empire,’ all of his work was on independent films where he had complete creative control. “You know, my first movie was developed with drug money. ‘Monster’s Ball.’ We won the first Black woman an Oscar. Every one of my films has been independently financed where I’m able to… do my thing and nobody is in my head.”
But when he moved to television, Daniels said he wanted to see what it was like to work for a major network and have to answer to executives. As he called it, it was “absolutely the worst experience. Horrible! But guess what? F*cking that money, money, money! I was able to put my kids through college and sh*t. So that in itself was worth it.”
Daniels, who is now promoting his latest Netflix horror movie ‘The Deliverance,’ originally had plans to create an ‘Empire’ spinoff focused on Cookie, the fan-favorite character played by Taraji P. Henson. That project never happened, and Henson later fired her management team because of it.
‘Empire’ has over 100 episodes, and it is now available to stream on platforms like Hulu and Tubi.
