The Butler director Lee Daniels talked with Larry King about the film, and his own connection to its focus on the civil-rights movement as a gay black man. Daniels discussed his own upbringing—full of beatings and bullying—and the hardship he feels gay men face in the African-American community:

Black men can't come out. Why? Because you simply can't do it. Your family says it. Your church says it. Your teachers say it. Your parents say it. Your friends say it. Your work says it. So you're living on this 'DL' thing and you're infecting black women. And its killing us. The black culture and the Hispanic culture have a thing about [homosexuality].