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Famed movie, television and theater director and creator Tyler Perry speaks to junior and senior students from Urban Prep Academy in Chicago on Oct. 5, 2016.
Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune
Famed movie, television and theater director and creator Tyler Perry speaks to junior and senior students from Urban Prep Academy in Chicago on Oct. 5, 2016.
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Since 2005, Tyler Perry’s name has come before about 20 films. He’s written, directed, produced and starred in more than half of them. He’s close friends with Oprah Winfrey and has five television shows currently airing. Twenty plays written, directed and produced by Perry have toured the U.S. since 1998.

Perry has, obviously, come a long way since growing up outside New Orleans. It was watching Winfrey on her eponymous long-running talk show that spurred him to start writing, and he simply never stopped. After penning his first stage play, “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” Perry moved to Atlanta, a city he called “the promised land.”

“I went there for the first time and I saw black people doing well, being college-educated, working jobs in suits and keeping their families together,” Perry said. “It was an eye opener. I decided I wanted to live in a place that fostered that kind of growth for African-Americans.”

At 22 years old, Perry used $12,000 of his own savings to finance the first-ever production of “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” which was a resounding flop. But with eight years and a lot of persistence, Perry eventually created a successful run, and by 2005, he had sold “more than $100 million in tickets, $30 million in videos of his shows and an estimated $20 million in merchandise,” according to Forbes.

It was then that Perry decided to make the switch from stage to film and television.

“I thought it would just be stage, but then I realized so many people were coming and we didn’t have the capacity to tell the stories to reach as many people as were trying to get in the door,” Perry said. “We were selling out everywhere, selling out arenas, and I thought, ‘OK, I should go to television, I should go to film,’ so I would be able to tell these stories and not kill myself trying to make it all through the country.”

From the get-go, the words “Tyler Perry presents …” have preceded the title of any production, whether it be on the stage, the big screen or television. For Perry, those three words speak volumes.

“I knew if I was going to build a brand early on that people needed to remember my name,” Perry said. “If you’re going to see a ‘Tyler Perry’ movie, you know what to expect.”

And what people expect is a very certain kind of film. For Perry, his work allows him to reach those who have been with him from the start, an homage to people who know where he comes from and follow his work.

After 20 years spent on the screen and 11 behind—or in front of—the camera, these fans are who Perry constantly thinks of when writing and producing the films that carry the “Tyler Perry presents …” label.

“I know that what I’ve never done is I’ve never left my base,” he said. “Some actors and directors leave their base as they get higher in the industry, which I will never do. … It would be like if Coca-Cola decided to stop making Coca-Cola for certain people. When you’re a brand, you have to serve your audience.”

That isn’t to say that his films can’t be for everyone. Perry said the themes of his newest film “Boo! A Madea Halloween”—raising children and handling disrespect within a family—are universal.

In the film, Brian (Madea’s nephew) is having a hard time controlling his teenage daughter, Tiffany. Despite Brian’s attempts to discipline Tiffany, she continues to disrespect him, until Madea comes to the rescue with parenting advice such as “You have to beat that child’s ass!”

Perry himself had a child with his partner, Gelila Bekele, almost two years ago. Their son, Aman, doesn’t ever make Perry get to a Madea level of discipline, thankfully. According to Perry, Madea’s parenting techniques are “too much”—clearly.

“I’m like 75 percent Brian, 25 percent Madea,” Perry said of his parenting style. “I could never be Madea, that’s way too much. Nobody’s gonna push him off a roof.”

Perry said Aman is just beginning to make his own decisions, choosing his own clothes and shoes, so his costume will be up to him (he was Batman last year). Perry recalled that when the time came for him to choose a costume as a child, his mom—who passed away in 2009—had to bring down the parental hammer.

“I didn’t have a costume so I was just going to wear a sheet over my head and be a ghost,” Perry said. “My mom saw me and was like, ‘Not in this neighborhood, you’re not gonna be wearing a sheet,’ so that was pretty scary.”

His mother’s “hammer” was part of Perry’s inspiration for Madea, making the character especially close to his heart, but he isn’t afraid to branch out. In 2014, Perry starred in “Gone Girl” as a defense attorney tasked with defending Ben Affleck’s Nick Dunne when his wife, Amy, disappears.

“When David Fincher calls, you don’t say no,” he said. “Working with [them] was like going to college. It was a learning experience for me about film and opened my eyes to how things should be done.”

Perry has also had bit parts in 2009’s “Star Trek” and, more recently, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” and “Brain on Fire,” both out this year.

While those are only a small portion of his larger collection of films, if the timing is right, Perry makes it a point to take on projects where he doesn’t need to wear a ridiculous number of hats.

For me it’s an opportunity to relax,” he joked. “I can just let go and let them lead the way and take charge.”

But without fail, Perry always returns to the characters that his audience knows and loves—and have loved since 1998. Having grown roots in Atlanta and been shaped by the theater community, those who saw him in his earliest days now follow his films religiously and can see themselves reflected in his work, which makes his films as popular as they are.

This was apparent in the passionate crowd at a screening for “Boo! A Madea Halloween.” Men, women and children alike all swarmed as Perry made an appearance at Showplace ICON for the screening, and responded uproariously when Perry reminded the crowd that Chicago was where Madea got her start (“After an actress didn’t show up, I took both her lines and mine,” Perry said. “The audience loved it.”).

“I’m always talking to them initially,” he said of this audience. Whether on screen or on stage, Perry shapes his work around the characters that his “base” is already familiar with.

“Madea is going to be Madea wherever she is,” Perry said. “She’s huge on stage and she’s only a little bit smaller on film, so she’s all about just letting it be, letting the story tell itself no matter where it’s taking place.

@shelbielbostedt | sbostedt@redeyechicago.com