Celebrity News

‘Butler’ draws rave reviews from critics, George H.W. Bush

Lee Daniels, whose new film “The Butler” has received positive critical buzz, can count George H.W. and Barbara Bush as fans.

At a Film Society of Lincoln Center Summer Talk on Thursday, Daniels recalled showing the civil rights father-son movie to the former president and first lady in Kennebunkport, Maine, right after he finished it: “I literally left the edit room to a sea of white, blond . . . as far as I could see there was 600 white people. Barbara Bush loved ‘Precious’ and sent me this long letter. It was so touching. She said, ‘We want to be the first ones to see the movie.’ ”

Daniels admitted he was apprehensive about going to Kennebunkport. “I was nervous. There’s [a] whole Reagan scene [with] apartheid, and [Bush] was a part of it,” Daniels explained, but the screening was a success.

“President Bush would [shout], ‘Is that Oprah [Winfrey], honey? Is that Oprah?’ and Barbara would [shout], ‘Is that Oprah, Lee? Is that Oprah?’ ” Daniels recalled. “She would [shout], ‘That’s Oprah, honey!’ I saw it through their eyes and they hung their heads . . . I felt bad for them . . . I found myself falling in love with them.”

Meanwhile, ex-president George W. Bush will also view the movie this weekend. Patrick Kennedy hosted a screening in Boston and professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. hosted one in Martha’s Vineyard this week.

Daniels also touched on racism, saying of Hollywood, “You have to be quiet because the racism is very subtle.” He also recalled a movie review in a “prestigious paper” that used the word “thuggish” and quoted Daniels using the N-word. “They tricked me . . . I told my son [Liam], ‘These people who are writing these things . . . You can’t hate them for it because they don’t really know what it’s like to be a black man . . . They think it’s thuggish because that’s what they think of us.”

Daniels revealed that while he thinks the movie is an achievement for black cinema, his son would like to see a black Superman.