12 Years A Slave Director Steve McQueen Praises 'Lovely Man' Kanye West As ...

It's not that often we hear great things about Kanye West and we're not going to lie, we have certain reservations when it comes to the star's outrageous opinion of himself, but one big fan of Yeezy and whose opinion we'll respect more than most is '12 Years A Slave' director Steve McQueen who has come forward to praise the controversial rapper, calling him a 'lovely man'.

Well we guess there's a first for everything! The pair have become close recently and now the film maker, who has been nominated for this year's 'Best Director' Oscar for his heart-wrenching slavery epic, has insisted that while the rest of us judge the 'I am a God' hit maker from a distance, Kanye's actually a pretty great guy.

Steve McQueen calls Kanye West a 'lovely guy' (TVYF/WENN)

Opening up about their budding friendship, Steve couldn't stop gushing over his new showbiz pal, telling E!online at last night's 66th Annual Directors Guild Awards in L.A: 'We talk all the time. He's a very lovely man. A lovely man.'

However he admitted he was unsure if the two would ever put their creative minds together in the future, explaining: 'I don't know, I mean, we're working on a friendship.'

So what is it that we're missing? Well the director told the site exactly why he has such admiration for the rapper.

'Because he's an experimenter, he's tireless in trying to create sound and music. That he can be progressive within the now. He's very current.'

He added, 'I'm just happy that he's around.'

Steve McQueen opens up about budding friendship with Kanye West (Brian To/WENN)

In this month's edition of Interview magazine, Steve was given the chance to quiz Kanye asking the star about everything from his career to becoming a father for the first time this year.

Opening up about daughter North West, Kanye revealed: 'I think I have to experience it for another few years to be able to give you an opinion. It's all brand new, how it feels to be a father.

'There are some things that I understand, certain things that I don't understand, certain things that I like to get off my chest in interviews, certain things that I want to talk about.

'But when we talk about love, I don't have an answer. All I can say is that I'm happy I have it.'

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