Lee Daniels (born December 24, 1959) is an American film and television producer, director and screenwriter. His first producer credit was Monster's Ball (2001), for which Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress, making Daniels the first African-American film producer to solely produce an Oscar-winning film. He made his directorial debut with Shadowboxer in 2005 and has since then directed the films Precious (2009), The Paperboy (2012, which he co-wrote), The Butler (2013) and The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021). Of these, Precious was the most critically acclaimed, and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including two nominations for Daniels, for Best Director and Best Picture. Other films he has produced include The Woodsman (2004), Tennessee (2008), Pimp (2018) and Concrete Cowboy (2020).
Daniels has co-created and co-executive produced the TV series Empire (2015–2020) and Star (2016–2019), both set in the music industry.
