This Friday Tyler Perry heads back to theaters with the release of his latest film, A Madea Christmas.
Perry reprises his role as the gun-toting, scripture-quoting Madea character that his loyal fans have come to cherish.
A Madea Christmas features Tika Sumper, Anna Maria Horsford, and Larry the Cable Guy, and follows Madea to a rural Alabama town where she’s coaxed into helping a friend pay her daughter a surprise visit for Christmas.
Perry talked about his new film, and also opened up about the successful year we are having in black cinema.
“There is definitely a wave that happens in film and in Hollywood,” Perry told theGrio’s Chris Witherspoon. “If you look back in the ’90s there were lots of movies with African-Americans around that time.”
“So there’s a wave, and then it comes down and you go through the low, and what I was able to do was maintain through that time. All we’re doing now is watching another wave happen. Which I’m very excited about. I think that ‘yes’ part of the success that I’ve had is a part of that, and so is Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Think Like A Man. You add those up together and you get the second wave that’s happening right now.”
Perry’s new film deals with interracial romance, and he has a hit series on the Oprah Winfrey Network, The Haves and the Have Nots.
The For Colored Girls director says that the messages in his films are all about acceptance, and A Madea’s Christmas is no exception.
“I just think that right now it’s important that people start to accept people for who they are and who they love… period,” Perry says. “It’s none of your business, and let us all just celebrate and live the best lives that we can.”
A Madea Christmas hit theaters nationwide Friday.
Follow Chris Witherspoon on Twitter for more Entertainment news at @WitherspoonC