Tyler Perry has staked his claim to the month of February. For the third year in a row, he will release a film during Black History Month, and if Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea’s Family Reunion are any indication, his latest will clean up, too.
Daddy’s Little Girls is his first film in which he does not star, nor does he call upon any of the characters from his stage plays. Staying behind the camera, he tells the story of Monty (Idris Elba), a single father of three fighting for custody from his drug addicted, but well connected, girlfriend. The high-strung lawyer (Gabrielle Union) he works for agrees to help him, but winning the case may be easier than making their romantic relationship happen.
As his press junkets get bigger and bigger, the more mainstream media accepts that the Tyler Perry brand is a force to consider. Perry handles the media in stride. He’s gotten to know a few of the faces, but everything he has done has come from his heart, so there’s no reason to change now.
Hollywood.com: Same time every year?
Tyler Perry: Same time every year. Black History Month. There’s a lot of good black programs to advertise on.
HW: Do you have interest in exploring a summer release?
TP: Yeah. You know what’s happened? The summer is so crowded and the movies are so big. You see, my little budgets that I have to promote my movies are nowhere near those summer blockbusters. What they spend on movies is probably what it takes for me to make three movies. What they spend on P&A, on just promotion, I can make make three movies and promote three movies before I even touch what they’ve done. I don’t know if I’d ever get into that. Because I was on the road so long I wasn’t able to do other movies so now I’m moving into 2-3 movies a year.
HW: Was it ever a consideration to star in this one?
TP: Never. I had done 300 performances of Madea Goes to Jail and done two movies and promoted two movies, and had the book out all in an 18-month period. So at this point I needed a break. And to me this was a break, getting behind the camera and getting to play and not having to worry about weight and eating right and all that stuff.
HW: How much will the success of Daddy’s Little Girls determine how quickly you return to Madea?
TP: It won’t. I know I’m away from Madea for at least two years. It won’t have any weight one way or another. I’ve got a plan I want to follow. There are two movies that I absolutely have to do before I get back to a Madea movie.
HW: But if these new movies are bigger hits, would that indicate you can take a little more time before going back to her?
TP: No. I don’t think the audience will let me wait that long or let me go that long because I have this communication with them and I can see it heating up. I’ll give them the Madea book and it’ll calm them down a little bit or give them the book on tape, and that will calm them down, so I have to watch it on my website to know when it’s time. But they’ll dictate it, they’ll definitely dictate it.
HW: Have you always been an organized person?
TP: I’m not very organized as I have so many parts of my brain working. There are like 10 different things going on in my head right now. I’ve got 10 different projects where I can sit here with you, pick up the phone, send a text and a fax and an email all at the same time. It’s schizophrenia or something I don’t know, but it works. I’m not very organized but I have a great team.
HW: Is there a particular time-day or night-where you’re most creative?
TP: No. I hold the scripts in my head for a very long time. 99 percent of the time they’re completely finished from page 1 to 95, they’re in my head. So when I sit down to write, whenever I can, and it floods out. I can knock a script out in two weeks because of the flood. But I’ve held it so long. Right now, I’ve got about three scripts in my head. I do a lot of writing on the plane. That’s when I write a lot of scripts.
HW: What’s the inspiration for Daddy’s Little Girls?
TP: I’ve got a friend who was working for me at the time and he was always on the phone and I was thinking, “Who is this guy talking to all the time?” Every time I turn around he’s on the phone and he’s supposed to be working. And then I found out, it’s his children. He has these three beautiful daughters. So he was my muse for Monty. He was a guy that grew up in the hood. Then I have another friend, who is very successful, in corporate America who is really, really rich. She was my muse. She was always saying how she can’t find a man. So I was thinking, what if I introduced the two of them? And I started laughing so hard, I said I gotta write this. It would be hilarious.
HW: Did you introduce them?
TP: No! They know each other but it could never happen. Only in the movies, man, only in the movies.
HW: You obviously betray the stereotype of the baby daddy with Monty, but you have fun with others like the rapper wannabe. How do you balance it?
TP: I don’t try to balance it. I can look at my life. I’ve got a friend who’s 40 years old who’s trying to become a rapper. It’s like, guy, let it go. He’s rapping and doing tunes and beats and I’m thinking, let it go! If you look at my life, I’m sitting here having this great conversation with you guys and in two minutes I’ll be on the phone with my mother, who’s like Madea. So my life is like that. It’s not about balance. It’s about reality.
HW: How are you handling being a brand name now?
TP: I had some great prep for it. You can be really famous with African-American people. I was traveling, attracting 30,000 to 40,000 people a week in theaters. I couldn’t go to the bar, I couldn’t go anywhere. They were my training for all of this stuff. So it doesn’t bother me. I live a couple of houses away from Jennifer Aniston. That annoys me because of the paparazzi. But other than that, I’m pretty good about it.
HW: Are you surprised with the success of your movies?
TP: I wasn’t surprised by the first two. What’s pleasantly surprising me is watching it cross over. Watching the charts rise in the other demographics. Especially with Diary, I was on tour and I’m looking at all of these faces every night, eight to nine shows a night every week, every night sold out. I’m telling them. I bring the screen down, and I’m coming out to do my bows, and I say, “I’m going to show you my new movie.” They applaud and go crazy and give a standing ovation. I say, “Are you going to come?” And they say they’ll be there. So I do this every major city in America, every minor city, every corner of the world here in America, so I wasn’t surprised by the success but everybody else was. I knew this audience would be there and I’m doing the same thing now with this film. It’s being shown every night as well.
HW: How are you fine-tuning your skills behind the camera?
TP: Madea’s Family Reunion was the worst directing. I’ll say it first hand. I think that this was my beginning because I had an opportunity to understand you’re supposed to do things with the camera here. There was a movie that drove me crazy, Friday Night Lights, which I really wanted to see, but the camera movement, I got sick in the theater. I was like, why is the camera a character? I always want the camera to just be in the room and let that be my eyes. My eyes don’t jump around when I’m watching things, you know? But yes, I’m taking more choices with cameras and doing some different things. It’s fun.
HW: Do you often get constructive criticism from your fans?
TP: Absolutely. There’s nothing more immediate. If I put a trailer up or commercial and something’s wrong. Take, for instance, the commercial where the little girl says, “What’s your name?” And she says, “Julia,” and she says, “Isn’t that a white girl’s name?” When I saw it I thought, “No, this shouldn’t be in the national campaign.” I started to get emails so we corrected the problem. Lionsgate and big studios spend all this money on research, and I can go straight to the website and send an email to my fans, and ask them their opinion and they’ll tell me right away. It’s a great education. That $600,000 becomes $6 million or so because they send them to so many people. One of the other reporters told me that she’s on my mailing list but she also gets emails from 20 other people. They’ll forward it to her.
HW: So you run your own market research firm, too?
TP: Absolutely, but only for Tyler Perry products. I’m very protective of it.
HW: Have you gotten approached for crazy Tyler Perry or Madea products?
TP: Yeah, a couple that would never happen. I won’t be doing any endorsements. Madea wont be showing up endorsing pantyhose or Hanes Her Way. None of that stuff is going to happen. I’ve gotten a couple of scripts. I’ve stopped accepting scripts because I’ve gotten some from the bigger studios that I thought were just laughable. People want to tap into it and capitalize on it but they don’t understand the spirit or the intent of it. This has never been about money for me from day one. It’s about being able to have this incredible gift, this incredible opportunity to use your voice, to speak life and help people and inspire them. That’s what it’s always been about for me. All the other things just came. Every time I’ve been in need, I’ve said a prayer, “I need somebody to cover this area,” then that person will eventually find their way to me. It’s getting harder and harder to filter them because the more success you have the more you deal with the craziness and you don’t know who’s who.
HW: When did you realize you were successful?
TP: It was at the premiere of The Color Purple. We were coming out of the back door, it was me, Oprah and Tina Turner. Oprah comes out and the crowds are at the barricades and they’re screaming, “Oprah, Oprah,” and she gets in the limo. Tina Turner comes out and “Tina!” I come out and this lady in the back yells, “Tyler, Tyler!” And I go, “I’m on my way!” That was pretty good.
HW: How does Daddy’s Little Girls fit into the bigger picture?
TP: I just think that it’s like feeling what am I led to do next, and I think fathers is what I’m supposed to be talking about now. However it fits in, I think it’ll fall in right where it should. Whatever happens, I’ll be happy either way. I think what makes a lot of people in this town unhappy is that you start off with a script or idea, and bring it to a studio. It’s shot down. It’s changed. It’s watered down. So then the movie comes out and doesn’t do well and everybody’s disappointed, but your vision was lost. But because I’m in the position that I’m in I’ve been able to maintain my vision. If I do something that’s 100 percent that’s my vision, which this movie is, and it fails, I’m still happy because I maintained my vision.
HW: Tell us about your new TV series. You’re going to direct every one?
TP: I am. I’ve always been a workaholic, but the great thing about House of Payne is that I have great writers. The way the day will go is that I’ll work the first two hours on blocking. We don’t shoot an episode a week. We’re going to do the episodes a week. I’ll go in and block for two hours with the actors, with an assistant director to rehearse and run through it, come back and shoot it that night while I’m off doing the film. Then we’ll take the summer off and then I’ll do the next 50. But House of Payne and TBS are great partners to have. This thing with Fox running it five days a week, I’m excited about it.
