Darren Grant is an award winning director with an extensive career spanning music videos, commercials, TV and feature film. After graduating film school, Grant took the industry by storm, with his meteoric rise in directing award winning music videos, for artists such as Destiny’s Child, TI, Common, Jay Z, Aaliyah, Jewel and Mary Mary. Darren won videos in every genre of music before moving into directing feature films.
His first feature film, Tyler Perry’s ”Diary of A Mad Black Woman" (Lions Gate) debuted at #1, grossed over $75 million. Although a commercial success, the filmmaking experience left Darren drained, and questioning his love for the art of film making. His second movie "Make it Happen,” a dance film set in the world of modern burlesque, was a mashup of his director repertoire of his love of music videos and feature film. Although widely acclaimed it struggled to garner mass appeal. It was after that Darren then began to flounder personally and professionally.
In this raw and candid interview, Darren lays it all on the table regarding his upbringing, his struggle to get into film school, his keen eye that landed him a coveted film school spot, his tremendous successes that quickly followed graduation, and the road to self destruction that left him broken personally, professionally and financially.
But it’s his comeback story that is even more impressive. Darren’s is a redemption story, a testament to self discovery, doing the work, and the humility to start over after an award winning career that crashed and burned.
Darren Grant is back on top and is once again one of the most sought after television directors, regularly directing episodes of such critically acclaimed television series as Suits, Empire, Queen of the South, The Chi and God Friended Me. Lisa and Darren sat down in Los Angeles shortly after Darren returned from location scouting in Paris for CBS’ God Friended Me.
You don’t want to miss this episode!