As a survey of Lee Daniels’ filmography clearly shows, he’s drawn to works that focus on struggle-filled tales of family strife, in part because that reflects the director’s own life.

The award-winning filmmaker, 53, whose latest film, “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” was a hit with both critics and audiences when it was released in August, spoke about these issues in an interview in the latest issue of Out magazine, in which he addressed his painful childhood and the continued difficulties of his adulthood.

According to Daniels, it was his bitter relationships with his father, a Philadelphia police officer who was murdered when Daniels was 15, that pushed him to come out. After finding him in his mother’s pumps one day, his father threw him in a trash can.

“When I came out it was because I loathed my dad so much — I couldn’t understand how you could, with an extension cord, beat a 45-pound kid just because he’s aware of his femininity,” he says. “For me it really created a world where I understood ‘Precious,’ where you learn the power of the imagination. And that’s how it began for me,” the director said.

As tough as his adolescence may have been, things didn’t get easier for the “Paperboy” director even as he started to achieve success as an actor, producer and director. He lost lovers to AIDS and struggled with his own drug problems.

“I was HIV-negative when everyone around me was dying — I should be dead.”

But Daniels has been able to overcome his difficulties to become a success in Hollywood and at home, where he’s now a father, having adopted his brother’s two children after he was sent to jail, in part because his refusal to run from who he was and is.

“I have to be really aware of it, and always talking about it — and be truthful about it to the point of ugliness so that it keeps my ass in check.”