There’s an onslaught of action movies coming out in 2010 – The Expendables, The A Team, Prince Of Persia, Clash Of The Titans and From Paris With Love amongst a whole host of others. Due to the potential overdose of action films this year I hadn’t kept much attention to Losers, yet after watching the trailer, it’s official, I AM SOLD, it looks a lot of fun, the cast looks great as well. Check out the trailer below

An explosive tale of double cross and revenge, “The Losers” centers upon the members of an elite U.S. Special Forces unit sent into the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission.  The team—Clay (Morgan), Jensen (Evans), Roque (Elba), Pooch (Short) and Cougar (Jaenada)—find themselves the target of a lethal betrayal instigated from inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max (Patric).  Presumed dead, the group makes plans to even the score when they’re joined by the mysterious Aisha (Saldana), a beautiful operative with her own agenda.  Working together, they must remain deep undercover while tracking the heavily-guarded Max, a ruthless man bent on embroiling the world in a new high-tech global war. Losers is directed by Sylvain White and stars Zoe Saldana, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chris Evans, Idris Elba and Columbus Short.

Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady in The Thing

If there was one single beard that could make a man look like he eats nails and sh*ts bricks this would be that beard. The beard gets extra points because The Thing is one of my favourite films.

Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction

I don’t think there’s a more quotable movie hardass than Jules Winnfield, he had the beard to match. What kind of man has ‘Bad Mother Fucker’ written on there wallet, only a man with a beard like Jules.

Clint Eastwood as Blondie in The Good The Bad And The Ugly

My favourite anti hero in cinema history, gruff and independent, he had the beard to match. Younger movie goers who haven’t seen Clint Eastwoods films made in the 60’s and 70’s probably only know him as the guy who makes touching films, anyone who’s a little older or has a deeper history knows that he’s a man who’ll shoot you, bang your girl and ride his horse across the desert while saying something badass like ‘You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.’ An Alpha male in every way.

Toshirô Mifune as Dr. Kyojô Niide in Akahige (Red Beard)

Mifune always carries a lot of power in his films, it is rumoured his strength came from his awesome beard. Playing a Samurai, Ronin, Yakuza and Warrior in over a hundred movies breeds awesomeness. This is the guy who Clint Eastwood adopted his persona. Red Beard was his finest bearded achievement.

Gerard Butler as King Leonidas in 300

One of the most bad ass and manliest characters in film. This beard gets extra points for some of the quotes from him ‘Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty… For tonight, we dine in hell! ‘ and another gem ‘Give them nothing! But take from them everything! ‘

Al Pacino as Officer Frank Serpico in Serpico

This beard looks like it infiltrated Pacino’s face, that can only be a good thing when talking about awesome beards. This was a toss up with Pacino;s beard in Carlito’s Way, another classic beard

Zach Galifianakis as Alan Garner in The Hangover

Hands down the movie beard of 2009, it showed the world that having a beard like Rick Ross does not have the same affect on a white guy, you just look like a weird awkward guy who is incredibly funny.

Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in Die Hard

Hans Gruber is also in my top 10 movie deaths (coming soon). One of my favourite villains of all time also has one of the best beards. The other 3 Die Hard movies haven’t got a lick on the original, all due to the fact that Hans Gruber’s beard wasn’t present.

Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates Of The Carribean series

I’m not a big fan of the series to be honest, I have a baseless deep seeded hatred for Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom. It’s not original to say Johnny Depp is the best thing about the series but simply, he is, and by a long stretch. From when you can braid your beard you know you can throw around the word epic liberally.

Chia Hui Liu as Pai Mei in Kill Bill Vol 2

This is the best beard to eyebrow combination. the fact that the beard is fake doesn’t even matter, it’s too epic to be discounted.

Sean Connery & Brian Blessed – Lifetime Achievment

These two have been rocking an epic beard for half a century, for that I salute them with the lifetime achievement award. Brian Blessed’s voice is the epitome of the word bellowing, Sean Connery is Sean Connery nuff said.

I’ve been looking forward to this since it was first announced, I really enjoyed the original. I’m still not convinced about Shia LaBeouf though, to be frank he annoys me, he seems like he’s always overacting, Josh Brolin’s involvement covers up my dislike of Shia LaBeouf though, he looks great in this. The trailers great not a fan of the music though

Emerging from a lengthy prison stint, Gordon Gekko finds himself on the outside of a world he once dominated. Looking to repair his damaged relationship with his daughter, Gekko forms an alliance with her fiancé Jacob (Shia LaBeouf), and Jacob begins to see him as a father figure. But Jacob learns the hard way that Gekko – still a master manipulator and player – is after something very different from redemption. Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps is directed by Oliver Stone and is set for release April 23^rd

Colin Firth is one of Britain’s most recognisable actors, he’s know to my Mum and pretty much every woman over 40 as Mr Darcy. He hasn’t stopped there though, he’s also starred in The English Patient, Fever Pitch, Shakespeare In Love, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Girl With A Pearl Earring, Love Actually, Nanny McPhee, When Did You Last See Your Father?, St Trinian’s and Mamma Mia! A Single Man for me is his best performance, I expect to see some Oscar love. A Single Man is based on the story by Christopher Isherwood. Set in the US in 1962, Firth plays English college professor George Falconer, a man struggling to come to terms with the death of his long term lover Jim (Matthew Goode). Distracted momentarily by old friend Charley (Julianne Moore) and curious student Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), he cannot ignore the profound sense of less he feels and so resolves to do something about it.

Fear is a big theme in the film.

Colin Firth: Yes, there’s that theme of fear running through it which George talks to his students about. I think it’s very much alive today, it’s a marketing tool and a political tool. I think it’s how governments get things done. That’s what Naomi Klein talks about in The Shock Doctrine. If you frighten people enough to can get any legislation through, you can make them put with the Patriot Act, or Guantanamo or the invasion of a country that should be left alone. Or indeed giving up your civil liberties, or putting up CCTV cameras everywhere. People are prepared to accept all that if they’re frightened.

Could Isherwood’s story have been updated and put in a contemporary setting?

Colin Firth: That’s a very difficult one to answer. I don’t think LA’s changed that much, really. This character happens to be gay, but although George is struggling with a lot he’s certainly not struggling with his sexuality. Isherwood’s characters don’t seem to. So I don’t know what it would have done to the film if you’d have set it in the present. You take the Cuban Missile Crisis out and put something else there, like the fear of terrorism, it’s actually rather an interesting question. I think there’s something about the characters of George and Charley that just feels right in 1962, there’s something about their whole cultural reference points that feel of that generation. But I think you could have updated it quite easily frankly. I just wouldn’t have looked as good.

Tom Ford with his fashion experience at Gucci, makes the film look great, but also delivers strong characters within the story, doesn’t he?

Colin Firth: He used all the skills that I think he’d developed as a designer. As he’ll tell you in his other job he has to have a vision and he has to be able to communicate that , he has to be able to marshal people and inspire them to share it and do what you want them to do. Those are very much the skills that are required to direct a film too. He also he has an extraordinary instinct for picking the right people to do the jobs he wants, whether it’s a designer or a make-up person or his cast. If you have a look at him for a moment you realise it would be silly to bet against him on something like this. But I do think there was an emotional cost to him with this, he’s not just proving that he can do it. I feel there’s a lot of him in the story.

How did he relate to his actors on set?

Colin Firth: He didn’t give me any verbal instructions really, ever, it was just very clear what was required once we were up and running. When I read the script there was a lot of space to be filled in, there was a lot of stuff without words, but once we were doing it it seemed terribly clear what each moment should be about really. Tom didn’t really need to fling instructions around. I could tell by the room that we were filming in what the mood was, I could see what was on the page. I could tell something by what I was wearing. People comment on the visual beauty of it, I didn’t really notice it as beautiful particularly , it just seemed to be an inevitable part of this world really.

So things like the production design were quite organically arrived at, were they?

Colin Firth: Yes, like that beautiful house is something that Tom looked very, very hard for. He wanted it to be the place that George had chosen, because he wanted it to be cosy. But if the scene is me sitting there alone, listening to a phone ringing with a cup of coffee in front of me and the camera outside the window looking in at this lonely man – you don’t need a director to say ‘okay, this is about loneliness,’. I just think that’s brilliant directing.

Did Tom tell you of the cinematographic style he was after, with the screen warming up in moments of happiness?

Colin Firth: He might have mentioned it but it certainly wasn’t something he troubled us with. I believe he always intended to do that but some of those decisions he came to afterwards. I like the effect, if you’re talking about the interior life of a human being I think that does help narrate the thing, as does the music.

Given Tom’s reputation as a fashion stylist did you make a special effort for your first meeting with him?

Colin Firth: Do you know, you can’t get close. You can’t match him at his own game, and also I don’t think he wants to see a world of Tom Ford clones running around. I know he likes elegance rather than shabbiness. He doesn’t like things out of place. People are a bit self conscious around him, and he does have a way of making people think they’re scruffy. But you know, you can feel scruffy in your best suit and tie standing next to him, he’s so perfect. I came straight from a film set anyway, I was a bit tired, I was a bit unshaven, and in some really rough looking clothes. And I got the part.

Were you aware of his reputation going in to the film?

Colin Firth: Only very distantly. I’m not connected to that world, so I didn’t know that much about him. I knew the name, I’d met him a couple of times, I think I knew he ran a bit fashion house but I probably would have struggled to have told you which one. I knew he did glasses, but that was it. And I also knew there was supposed to be something rather extraordinary about him, that he had this ability to succeed at everything.

A SINGLE MAN will be released at cinemas across the UK on Friday 12th February 2010.

In general I’m not too big on magazine’s, online has completely taken over in my opinion. It’s more up to date, doesn’t have as many restrictions and generally has more character. That being said I’m a massive fan of Empire Magazine, here’s there new fold out Kick-Ass cover.

Inside, we have interviews with all the cast and crew, including Nicolas Cage on the influence of Adam West’s Batman (“That’s Big Daddy’s Jungian muse, to help him accomplish the things he accomplishes”) and Matthew Vaughn on why he originally had Zac Efron in mind for the Red Mist role now occupied by Christopher Mintz-Plasse. “We initially met Chris Mintz-Plasse for Dave, because we were thinking about making Dave (Kick-Ass) a really, really geeky kid. And we thought it would be interesting if Red Mist was the much cooler guy.”

Gabby Sidibe really hit me with her performance in Precious, it’s definitely one of the hardest hitting films I’ve seen in the last few years, if you want to see explosians, slapstick comedy and spaceships this film is not for you. Gabby plays Claireece “Precious” Jones  a sixteen-year-old girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo’Nique who also gives a sensational performance), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, she’s doing well but she’s living with the secret that she can neither read nor write. Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton my crush of the month), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination, it’s serious business and hands down one of the most powerful films I’ve seen.

You give terrific performance in Precious, but I understand you had no real aspirations to become actor. You thought it was a dream too far…

Gabby Sidibe: Yes. That makes a lot of sense, a dream too far. I had been told for most of my life that I would never be able to do something like this. Also I got a lot of cues from the media: when it comes to actresses and people the media cares about, you can probably count the girls that look like me on one hand. So I certainly didn’t think I could break any barriers and become an actress.

And even when you got the audition you weren’t convinced?

Gabby Sidibe: No. I wasn’t. I was withholding; on the fence. I thought it was a dumb idea to go in and do the audition because there was no way that I could be an actress. It had never been within my scope and I never auditioned for anything. I wasn’t an actress. I had no training. Nothing. I thought it made more sense that I to go to school. I was a receptionist for a company while I was studying psychology. But somehow or other it ended up with my going to the audition.

Who persuaded you?

Gabby Sidibe: It was partly my mother and also I have a friend, Henry, who is the assistant director in my local theatre. He called me when they were coming to cast and he thought of me, because they were looking for a very specific girl that I look like. After the audition I went straight to work and by the time I got out of the subway, which is literally an hour later, I had the call back.

I heard that you had an amusing phone call when trying to ring them for the call back…

Gabby Sidibe: Yeah, I was still in disbelief, I dialled the wrong number and I got some lawyer office and I was talking to this lawyer and who happened to have the same name as the guy I was meant to be calling. I was like, ‘Can I talk to Billy Hopkins?’ So they put me through to Billy, the lawyer! He was like, ‘What are you looking for?’ And I said, ‘I have just done this audition and I am doing the call back.’ He laughed, and said, ‘I hope they actually gave you the right number!’ I was pretty sure they did, because I was just one number off so he wished me luck. ‘I hope you get it.’ he said. So I called the right number and made an appointment to come in the next day. The callback was the next day and I was called within half an hour of leaving, saying Mr. Daniels wants to see you. He wanted to meet me that day but since I had already gone all the way back home — and I think the office at the time was five blocks away from where the call back was — so they said I made the appointment and went back in the next day and was talking to Lee for about forty five minutes to an hour. The whole time I am waiting to do the audition again because I was told I would have to audition for him, but it never happened. He just gave me the part.

Lee Daniels says that you told him things about the character that he had not considered. Do you remember what?

Gabby Sidibe: Being a fan of the book, anytime they wanted to do something a little different I would get up on a soapbox, saying, ‘No, you can’t do that because they didn’t do that in the book and we can’t change the book.’ I am anal and got very serious about the character. I have probably told him a lot of things just because there are so many layers to Precious and he just thought because she was big and dark skinned that she had to be a certain way. But in meeting me, I am big and I have dark skin but I am certainly better than what he thought of me. He thought I would be not so and certainly I changed his idea of who Precious is, based on the way I am.

What were you thinking during the audition?

Gabby Sidibe: It was the scene where Precious meets Ms Weiss for the first time, the social worker, and I was given about three minutes with it. I hadn’t seen the scene beforehand. For the most part if you have a manager and the manager submits you for the role then they will email you the sides to the audition so you can prepare the night before. But since this was an open casting call I just showed up, no appointment, no nothing. And they had sides available so I was given three minutes with it and I went in and I did it. I remember thinking that it was a complete waste of time. Billy Hopkins was in the room with his assistant director Jessica Kelly and I wasn’t nervous at all, because I was feeling pretty stupid for having cut class and I was wondering about what I was missing. That was pretty much all that was on my mind. I wasn’t nervous at all because I didn’t think I had it all; I thought that I had zero chance of actually getting the part.

There are many layers to character and some very harrowing scenes to film…

Gabby Sidibe: I tend to disappear when I am acting as Precious. I am blank, completely, I am just feeling every emotion as Precious would feel it and how she should feel it. I leave my body and I take on this character. It is such a weird thing to describe because at first you do a certain amount of takes for every scene, sometimes more than others and for each time it is all brand new information and it a real revelation. It never grows cold or dead to me.

Precious dreams about the red carpet in the movie. How are you finding it yourself?

Gabby Sidibe: Red carpets are more fun in the film. Photoshoots are more fun in life. That’s the way you split that. Red carpets. They don’t suck but they are actually more fun to film than to actually do. Photoshoots are really awesome because sometimes they give you the clothes you are wearing. They give you free shoes and stuff like that!

PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL “PUSH” BY SAPPHIRE is released in cinemas across the UK on 29th January 2010

Above are the first two posters for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, with Dev Patel’s evil character Zuko on the right and Noah Ringer’s character Aang on the left. It’s been nearly 7 months since the impressive teaser trailer hit the internet, I’m not fully convinced about this though, just for the fact that M. Night’s last film was The Happening, that film was so bad it felt like a con, it was a huge, steaming, smelly turd of a film if there ever was one. I still think M. Night is a talented director (which frustrated me even more) and I believe this sort of source material will bring the best out of him. Look out for the trailer in Febuary

Based on the hugely successful Nickelodeon animated TV series, The Last Airbender is set in a world where human civilization is divided into four nations: Water, Earth, Air and Fire.

The Fire Nation is waging a ruthless, oppressive war against the other three nations. The film’s hero, the reluctant young Aang (Noah Ringer), is the “Last Airbender” — the Avatar who, according to prophecy, has the ability to manipulate all of the elements and bring all the nations together. Aided by a protective teenage Waterbender named Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her bull-headed brother Sokka, Aang proceeds on a perilous journey to restore balance to their war-torn world.

I’ve been looking forward to this for well over a year now, I almost gave up hope after the release date kept getting moved around, it was originally scheduled to be released all the way back in November 2008. Talk of re-shoots, the change of composer and the change of directors put a downer on this for me. The latest trailer and a couple clips brought back my faith though, I always enjoy Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins as well. After all this Twilight crap we need a good Wherewolf/monster film! I’ve got my fingers crossed I’m still not fully convinced though.

Inspired by the classic Universal film that launched a legacy of horror, THE WOLFMAN brings the myth of a cursed man back to its iconic origins.  Oscar® winner Benicio Del Toro stars as Lawrence Talbot, a haunted nobleman lured back to his family estate after his brother vanishes.  Reunited with his estranged father (Oscar® winner Anthony Hopkins), Talbot sets out to find his brother…and discovers a horrifying destiny for himself.

Lawrence Talbot’s childhood ended the night his mother died.  After he left the sleepy Victorian hamlet of Blackmoor, he spent decades recovering and trying to forget.  But when his brother’s fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), tracks him down to help find her missing love, Talbot returns home to join the search.  He learns that something with brute strength and insatiable bloodlust has been killing the villagers, and that a suspicious Scotland Yard inspector named Aberline (Hugo Weaving) has come to investigate.

As he pieces together the gory puzzle, he hears of an ancient curse that turns the afflicted into werewolves when the moon is full.  Now, if he has any chance at ending the slaughter and protecting the woman he has grown to love, Talbot must destroy the vicious creature in the woods surrounding Blackmoor.  But as he hunts for the nightmarish beast, a simple man with a tortured past will uncover a primal side to himself…one he never imagined existed.

Avatar is raking it in, last Saturday it sealed it’s place in the record books as the highest grossing film of all time at the international box office with a grand total of $1.288bn (Titanic’s International Box Office receipt is $1.242), it has now grossed more than $100m for the sixth consecutive weekend internationally. It is also creeping up on Titanic’s domestic (US) Box Office record of $600.8m with $552.8m. I don’t think anyone expected it to make this much money, I thought it would be a huge success but damn, that is a lot of 0’s and $’s. Check out my interview with James Cameron, Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver here

Lee Daniels is a critically acclaimed Director and Producer, he has produced the Academy Award Winning Monsters Ball, The Woodsman and Tennessee. Daniels made his directorial debut with 2006’s Shadowboxer, starring Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is his second directorial outing…

Set in 1987, it is the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a sixteen-year-old girl born into a life no one would want. She’s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo’Nique), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write. Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination.

Initially, the author, Sapphire, was against a film adaptation. Yet you won her over.

Lee Daniels: Love her. Love her for that. It took me nine, probably ten, years to stalk her. I have stalked her for ten years. Sapphire is a scholar. She is a genius. She is a poet. She is an intellect beyond belief. She doesn’t give a fuck about Hollywood. She don’t care about it, just doesn’t. It is about literature and I think that Lady Luck must have been on my side because she finally embraced the idea. I think that even if I did a bad movie, it would not affect her brilliant masterpiece and I think that she saw the difference in both. She finally realised it and I was there the right time stalking her.

Do you know why she changed her mind? Did she see one of your other films maybe?

Lee Daniels: I think it was a combination of things, but I think she saw Shadowboxer and she really thought I could bring something to the world that she created and she is very excited that I am doing it.

Did she come to the film set?

Lee Daniels: She came down once or twice. I think she had to watch some of what I was doing because I am dealing with her very profound book. She laughed at something that only Mo’Nique and I thought was funny and she was laughing with us because she got it. She understood that there is humour and that she was still the creator. There was a moment when Mo’Nique was laughing at something and I was laughing at something and Sapphire was laughing at something and we realised that nobody else was laughing but us and that we were on another plane. It was a surreal moment.

What was the moment?

Lee Daniels: It was the scene when the mother tells Precious about the HIV. Precious says, ‘Do you have it?’ And the mother says ‘No.’ And Precious says, ‘How do you know?’ And the mother says, ‘Because we didn’t do it up in the ass!’ No one else thought that was funny. I don’t think it was funny but it was this brilliant delivery of it. I think we were laughing at the execution. It was exactly how Sapphire wrote it in the book so there was this triangle of understanding between Mo’Nique, Sapphire and myself.

It is a tough film but also a very tough book. You have had to soften the delivery a little bit, and add a few more rays of light…

Lee Daniels: A little bit!! A lot of a bit. If I had done the book it would have been X-rated. Not that I have a problem with doing X-rated films. I haven’t yet. But this would have lost an audience. I think that the audience should be entitled to breathe. I think with the book, if it gets too much, emotionally, you can put it down. It affected me so that I had to stop. I had to digest it. I put it down and picked it up again later on and I think that the sequences and the touches of humour that we put in the script really do it justice. Geoffrey Fletcher really did a marvellous job translating this book, this script, and we just took it to another place on the screen. We had to let the audience breathe. If you’ve read that book you will know what I am talking about.

You’ve said that you knew people who were moments away from being characters in this story. From where in your life do you know these people?

Lee Daniels: I knew these people when I was a kid. I knew these people as an adult. I know these people now. As a 50-year-old man, there are Precious, there are Marys. These are real life people to me. Everybody in that movie is someone that I have known. And I find it surprising that people don’t know them. I know that if you live in New York City there is no way you don’t see Precious. And I often see Mary. I am down in the grocery store and I am watching mothers yank on their kids, and just really fuming at them, with a cigarette dangling from their mouth. It doesn’t matter if they’re black, Puerto Rican, white or Chinese. Each woman exists.

Was the character of Mary the hardest to cast? She needs to be very complex, almost macabre, yet able to show that she did have something good inside her once.

Lee Daniels: Mary is a very complex person and she was the first person that I did cast. Mo’Nique is my best friend; a very, very good friend and I speak to her every day. I like working with friends. Mariah Carey is another. Gabby has become a good friend. I like working with friends because I know they have my back and we have such a tight budgetary parameter in dealing with the film that you have to count on friendships to take you through those barriers. It is a difficult journey. With regards to Mo’Nique what we did, only friends can do. It went beyond the director-actor friendship; she really understands me. Mo’Nique understands me in my primal place and we just talked about her. And we talked about me. We talked about my insecurities, paranoia, hopes and dreams and sex life, and what I love poetry-wise and what literature I like. And then she sort of broke down and then we transcended all that shit that she knew that I wanted into her interpretation of Mary. It was volatile, explosive, a magical moment, for me. I expected everything that she gave me. I was not surprised by a syllable.

On that point, you’ve been very brave in talking about the abuse you suffered as a child. That’s reflected specifically in the movie, right, with Precious’ dream sequences?

Lee Daniels: I was never sexually abused, but I was physically abused at home. And when bad things happened to me or I saw bad things happen, I would fantasize. When I was 12, I saw someone killed. I remember very clearly that I went into a bubble and I became a prince in a silver crown, knighting someone with my sceptre. I just dropped into a place right there, so I wouldn’t feel the pain. My imagination was God’s way of protecting me and keeping me sane, and I think we catch that in the movie, yes.

When did you first decide that you wanted to direct films, as well as produce them?

Lee Daniels: I started directing theatre. That’s how it started. I was in theatre early on and I moved. The camera was an animal to me that scared me but I learned about that while I was managing actors, and while I was producing films. Because of that, actors have always been in my comfort zone. My whole thing to begin with in the entertainment industry was media and managing actors throughout the world and being on sets and studying. I was always studying the process of filmmaking through filmmakers and through cinematographers and through production designers etc etc. So that whole experience was learned not through your conventional way

Finally, what was the most important thing that you wanted to convey with this film?

Lee Daniels: That never again should we look at Precious and not look at Precious. When you stumble across this girl you will acknowledge her. Because I have cousins that are her, friends that are her and even having friends and cousins that are her, I still disassociate myself. It is so important for me that I embrace this girl with all my gusto, because she is embracing me. The other important part of this story is about learning to love yourself, and accepting who you are. Those are the two big points I hope people will walk away with from this film. Who knows if they will? But I pray to God that they do.

PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL “PUSH” BY SAPPHIRE is released in cinemas across the UK on 29th January 2010