If you were unaware that Tyler Perry, the prolific writer, director, actor and self-made billionaire, is a very busy man, the flurry of activity around him would make it abundantly clear.
Perry’s accomplishments are as extensive as his workload. He has written some 20 stage plays, 17 television shows and two bestselling books. The state-of-the-art film and television production facility he founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2019 has hosted big Hollywood productions, including Black Panther and Coming 2 America, in addition to staging his in-house TV shows and movies. The impressive lot includes realistic streets and a full-scale replica of the White House.
He also helped Prince Harry and Meghan Markle by providing them with his Beverly Hills home when they stepped down from royal duties in 2020. He is godfather to their daughter, Lilibet.
It’s a huge step up for a performer who, in the 1990s, spent his life savings of $12,000 to stage and develop his first play at a community theatre. He slept in his car as he toured the Chitlin’ Circuit, the series of venues around the United States that have nurtured black talent since the Depression.
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He still can’t believe how things have turned out. “Wouldn’t that be a great movie?” he says. “If our older selves could go back in time and say, ‘You won’t believe what will happen for you. Just keep going. You’re on the right path. It’s going to blow your mind.’ How great would that be?”
Perry’s latest film, The Six Triple Eight – astonishingly, the 26th film he has written and directed since 2006 – is the remarkable true story of the only US army unit of black women dispatched to Europe during the second World War. In 1945 its members were sent to sort through 17 million pieces of mail piled up in warehouses across the Continent.
I had never heard of this battalion, I tell him. “Oh, me neither,” Perry says. “Nicole Avant” – Barack Obama’s ambassador to the Bahamas – “sent me this sizzle reel, which is a minute-long clip of historic footage of these women and what they’ve done. I thought, ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ There were 855 black women of colour in Europe during World War II, and I didn’t know it. I was embarrassed.”
Researching The Six Triple Eight, which stars Kerry Washington as the pioneering Major Charity Adams, the first black officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps – and the highest-ranking black woman officer in the US military during the second World War – Perry stumbled on a hidden history.
Where Madea’s most effective for me is when the world is in trouble. She walks in, and madness and mayhem ensue. I want to have a moment to just make people laugh. I don’t mind anything as long as people are laughing and feeling good and able to forget the madness of the world for a minute
“It was the opportunity to honour these women, because when they left home there was this stigma,” Perry says. “The stigma was so bad that most of them didn’t even talk about it. A lot of their families did not know that they were in service.
“There was a lot of stigma because there were rumours – even black papers had reported – that they were sent to Europe to be concubines for black soldiers. Because white soldiers from America were angry that black soldiers were dating European women. So they came home and didn’t talk about it. Charity Adams went to work at Macy’s for a while.”
For a film-maker mostly known for romantic comedies and the goofy antics of his alter ego, Madea, The Six Triple Eight was both a change of pace and a huge responsibility. Perry recalls his exchanges with 99-year-old Lena Derricott King (played by Ebony Obsidian in the film), who enlisted after her Jewish boyfriend was killed in action, and around whom his film turns.
“She talked about how much better they were treated in Europe than when they were at home in the US,” Perry says. “I didn’t know what her recall would be like. But her memory was so sharp. I went to the historian after taking notes, and he confirmed that everything she said, every detail, was spot on.
“I was honoured that I got a rough cut together and got a chance to sit at her bedside when she was in the hospice at 100 years old. And she was still sharp. When I walked in she said, ‘Give me some lipstick: Mr Perry’s here.’ She was very excited about the movie. A lot of those women that were still alive knew my work. They really loved Madea.”
Madea is Perry’s most successful creation. The no-nonsense, wisecracking matriarch, who Perry plays himself, appears in plays and films and on TV, addressing faith, occasionally running from the Ku Klux Klan, and resorting to violence when abusive men come along. She has grossed more than $1 billion globally.
Perry tried to retire her with Madea’s Farewell Play in 2019, but she was going nowhere. Madea’s Destination Wedding, the 13th film in the Madea cinematic universe, will land on Netflix in 2025.
I like to do multiple things at once. From childhood I had this hypervigilance to keep myself safe and protected. I think all of that has come into play in the work that I do now
“Where she’s most effective for me is when the world is in trouble,” Perry says. “She walks in, and madness and mayhem ensue. I want to have a moment to just make people laugh. I don’t mind anything as long as people are laughing and feeling good and able to forget the madness of the world for a minute.”
As an occasional actor, Perry has shared scenes with Cate Blanchett (Don’t Look Up) and Ben Affleck (Gone Girl) and played Colin Powell (Vice) and a New York Post editor (Brain on Fire). During production on that last film, its director, Gerard Barrett, who is from Co Kerry, noted the similarities between Madea and Brendan O’Carroll’s Mrs Brown. Both are truth-telling, old-fashioned matriarchs played by men in unflattering dresses. Mrs Brown subsequently appeared in A Madea Homecoming, Perry’s 2022 crossover comedy.
“Gerard asked me if I had ever seen Mrs Brown’s Boys,” Perry says. “I looked it up and I thought, ‘Whoa, this is fascinating.’ I watched what he had done in Australia and parts of Europe and thought, ‘This is what I’ve done in America’ ... When we met and talked it was like we were old pals.”
[ Mrs Brown and Madea: A meeting of culturally reviled phenomenaOpens in new window ]
Perry, who was born in New Orleans, endured extreme poverty and abuse from a violent father as a child. “I don’t know why he did it,” he has said. “But I remember him cornering me in a room and hitting me with this vacuum-cleaner cord.”
Going to church with his mother, Willie Maxine Perry, and retreating into his imagination offered much-needed respite. In 1992 he was inspired by Oprah Winfrey to write a series of letters to himself detailing his traumatic childhood. The letters coalesced into the hit musical I Know I’ve Been Changed.
It received a rave review in the Washington Post, a rarity for a creator who is not beloved by critics. “I don’t mind,” Perry says “It’s going extremely well. I think that some of us are really uptight and always have our noses up in the air. For me it’s about bringing joy to people.”
I grew up at the hip of my mother’s apron. I watched her endure all kinds of things. And I heard her tribe: the women around her. I was a sponge listening to everything that they said and watching how they moved
Perry didn’t graduate from high school. He transitioned from theatre into cinema the same way he has done everything in his career: by learning on the job. The first Madea film, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, was directed by Darren Grant in 2005. Perry, who wrote, produced and starred in it, playing three roles, took notes.
“I like to do multiple things at once,” he says. “From childhood I had this hypervigilance to keep myself safe and protected. I think all of that has come into play in the work that I do now. I did not direct my first movie because I didn’t think I was ready, but, as I was watching, the thing that drove me insane was the amount of wasted time. Because I was writing the cheques.
“So the next movie I directed I learned in progress, which was difficult, because millions of people are judging and watching what you’re doing. I’m so grateful to my audience because then – and still to this day – they send the things I make straight to number one.”
The Six Triple Eight is Perry’s second collaboration with Kerry Washington. His best roles are always female, a knack that has attracted such performers as Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Gabrielle Union, Kim Kardashian and Alfre Woodard, not to mention Winfrey.
“I have my mother and aunts to credit for that,” Perry says. “I grew up at the hip of my mother’s apron. I watched her endure all kinds of things. And I heard her tribe: the women around her. I was a sponge listening to everything that they said and watching how they moved.
“I love writing for women. Anytime I’m writing for any woman I reflect on what these women endured, what they went through, and their feelings. My mother, Maxine, is a part of every female character that I write. I’m grateful that the women I work with get it. But also, if there’s something that doesn’t ring true, they’ll challenge me on it. I’m very glad about that.”
The Six Triple Eight is on Netflix from Friday, December 20th
