Lee Daniels Almost Quit Directing After Critics Trashed ‘The Paperboy’: ‘They Just Came for Me’
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Nicole Kidman squat-piss on Zac Efron’s jellyfish sting, or eye-fuck John Cusack from across the room of a no-contact death row prison visit, or Efron dancing to Linda Clifford’s “I Just Wanna Wanna” in clinging tighty-whities in the rain. All of this and more happens in Lee Daniels’ sweaty, swampy Southern Gothic “The Paperboy,” the writer/director’s 2012 follow-up to his Oscar-winning sensation “Precious.” It’s a movie, as Daniels told IndieWire, that “doesn’t get any love.”
Set in 1969, this delirious entertainment follows Matthew McConaughey as a Florida reporter covering inmate Hillary Van Wetter (Cusack), who has been convicted of killing a racist cop. McConaughey hires his brother Jack (Efron) to probe Hillary’s possible innocence. Efron is seduced by the vamping, sex-mad blonde Charlotte Bless (Kidman), a southern-friend Alabama belle in love with Hillary from afar. Violence, madness, and a pervasive hothouse atmosphere of horniness ensue in a film now earning cult classic status — and a place among Kidman’s best performances.
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Daniels’ misunderstood movie premiered in competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, up against the likes of Michael Haneke’s eventual Palme d’Or winner “Amour,” Leos Carax’s “Holy Motors,” David Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis,” and Jeff Nichols’ McConaughey-starring “Mud,” also set in the South. That year’s competition jury, led by president Nanni Moretti, included Andrea Arnold, Diane Kruger, Alexander Payne, Raoul Peck, Ewan McGregor, and even Jean Paul Gaultier, who all awarded nada to “The Paperboy.” (You’d think Gaultier could’ve at least appreciated costumer Caroline Eselin’s styling of Kidman, wrapped in bright-pink smock house dresses, but alas there’s no prize for most destined-to-be-iconic costumes at Cannes.)
And critics beat “The Paperboy” against the rocks, with no rating over two stars out of a possible four on the annual Screen International Grid. (Even IndieWire’s review gave it a so-bad-it’s-not-even-good D+ at the time.) Attending that year’s festival, I remember European press labeling “The Paperboy” as merely the film where “Kidman pisses on Efron.” Daniels totally embraced sleaze in a movie that bewildered festival reviewers out of step with its deliberately trashy slice of Americana — and one narrated by Macy Gray of all people, and one whose camera dares you to not desire a scantily clad Efron also.
“The Paperboy” was dumped in U.S. theaters later in the fall by Millennium Films to a domestic box office take of just over $677,000 against a $12-million-plus budget. Kidman, though, did snag Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe award nominations. (Recall Kidman’s bestie Naomi Watts vacantly drinking champagne when Anne Hathaway’s name was called for that SAG prize for “Les Misérables,” as already foretold by her awards season winning streak.)
With poor reviews out of Cannes and hardly enthusiastic ones stateside that October, Daniels’ backwater noir was never set up for success. And as the director revealed to IndieWire during a recent interview promoting his upcoming Netflix thriller “The Deliverance,” the two-time Oscar nominee almost quit filmmaking altogether after “The Paperboy” skidded out.
“That movie doesn’t get any love,” he said. “I was going to give up directing after that, because it was so trashed, and reviewers didn’t get the world. I felt like it was my Black version of my white version of ‘The Paperboy.’ I was offered all these Black roles, Black jobs, Black films, and I was like, ‘No, I’m a fucking filmmaker. I’m not just a Black filmmaker. And I really want to work with white actors. How can you label me like this?'”
Before directing, Daniels had worked as both a manager (including for “American Beauty” breakout Wes Bentley) and a casting director. His first producing credit under Lee Daniels Entertainment was 2001’s “Monster’s Ball,” which made Halle Berry the first Black Best Actress Oscar winner ever. Then came his feature debut “Shadowboxer,” starring Cuba Gooding Jr., also excoriated by critics. Then, “Precious,” starring Gabourey Sidibe as a high schooler suffering abuse at the hands of her mother (Mo’Nique), earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. So there were certain expectations that his next film would necessarily be a Black story, too.
“In walks ‘Paperboy,’ and I was like, OK, I’m never going to direct again, because they just came for me,” he said. Of course, he didn’t quit, as “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” became a hit in 2013, and TV’s smash “Empire” and Andra Day’s Oscar nomination for “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” followed. But in spite of the reviews, he remembers a hearty standing ovation at Cannes for “The Paperboy” when it premiered at the festival in May (15 minutes, apparently, as arbitrary as these applause are). That sure wasn’t the same for the film’s early morning critics’ screening, which saw walkouts and the cynical boos typical of the festival.
That “long ovation was incredible. I was expecting that. And then they said people were booing. That was not a boo! I saw more love than I saw for ‘Precious’ there,” he said. After “Precious” won the Grand Jury Dramatic, Special Jury (for Mo’Nique’s performance), and Audience awards at Sundance in 2009, it played at Cannes in Un Certain Regard, a rare gesture from the French festival that prides itself on world premieres. (At “Paperboy’s” 2012 Cannes year, Benh Zeitlin’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild” similarly played Un Certain Regard after winning top Sundance honors.)
“I love all of my work equally, but the ones that were kicked to the curb are the ones that I hold dear to my heart, and [‘The Paperboy’] is something I hold dear to my heart,” Daniels said.
For star Kidman, “The Paperboy” also remains a high point. She praised Daniels, who was in attendance, at the AFI Life Achievement Award tribute that took place in April 2024 among a long list of auteurs who’ve shaped her career. That’s even in spite of, according to Daniels in an Interview Magazine Q&A with Kidman from 2015, the actress being tossed “around the fucking room like a mop” in brutalizing sex scenes with Cusack. “And the next day you came to set bruised.” (“If he’s a little rougher than he knows he’s being, the last thing I want to say is, ‘Oh my gosh, you hurt me,'” Kidman said, adding that she wanted Cusack to “feel free.”)
Efron, who presented at Kidman’s AFI tribute and starred with her again on Netflix’s “A Family Affair” this year, continued to make smart choices beyond former casting director Daniels’ tutelage. By the time of “The Paperboy,” he was well past his “High School Musical” days, and movies that followed included Harmony Korine’s “The Beach Bum,” playing Ted Bundy in “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” and last year’s “The Iron Claw,” which earned him Oscar buzz. That’s part of Daniels’ gift: Very few of his actors sell out or do something career-debasing after working with him.
“After I left casting, I was also a manager. I was directing theater the whole time, and I knew how to talk to actors, and I think that’s part of what makes me me in my direction,” he told IndieWire. “[Zac Efron] knows. When you tap into a place, and you know that you’re good, and I don’t think he’s been better since ‘The Paperboy.’ It was jaw-dropping that I even saw what I saw when we were working together. When the artist knows that I’ve hit Mt. Everest with my work, I ain’t going down. That has something to say.”
You can stream “The Paperboy” on Peacock, and look out for “The Deliverance” in theaters August 16 before streaming on Netflix on August 30. And stay tuned for more in conversation with Daniels about “The Deliverance” on IndieWire.
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