Nobody's Fool Tyler Perry Interview

What's going on guys? Austin Putnam, FlickDirect, interviewing Tyler Perry on his newest film, Nobody's Fool. How are you doing so far? I'm good. Now, Tiffany Addish came out at CinemaCon and stated that you filmed this movie in two weeks. Is that true? Yeah, totally true. How is that possible on a logistical standpoint? Because it sounds like it's a nightmare to do it in two weeks.

No, no, no, not at all. I have a great team. We shoot almost two episodes of my television show a day, so my team is all over the place. We know how to move. A lot of times, things get bogged down by directors who are not sure if they have the shot. They don't know if they have to wait for the studio to give them notes on what they want or reshoot.

I don't have any of that, so it's just me and the talent, and we went for it. Dang, it sounds like it. Because shooting a short film alone can be insane, but knowing that you shot two weeks, that's incredible, man. Yeah, about 15 pages a day. It's really not as crazy as you think it is. As long as the actors can work that way and they know the lines, it's gravy, man.

My team's got it. Speaking of Tiffany Haddish, how did you get her into this? Because I absolutely love her. How were you able to rope her into this, seriously? One of my first television shows on OWN was 11 Years Wrong, and she was on the first season. She and I had a previous relationship, but I always felt like she was bigger than the show and that she was out of place in the show.

I've known her for a while, so it was a phone call. Tyler Perry's calling and wants to work with me. I was like, "Yeah, I'll work with you again." The story is about this girl being possibly catfished. What was the idea about catfishing that pulled you towards making this part into the script or the story of the idea? It's all strategic because I just signed a deal with Viacom.

Catfish is on MTV, which is a Viacom channel. I thought, "I'm going to build a show around some of the properties that they have on the network and at the company." I love catfish, so I thought this could be a really great concept. I like catfish. It's pretty awesome. The movie itself was great. Those guys were really good, right? Naturals. They were really good.

I was surprised by that. This is your first R-rated film, which really surprised me because you have a huge catalog. What was it about this story that made you go, "You know what? This is the time where I'm going to go for the R rating"? It's Tiffany Haddish. I got Tiffany, I got Whoopi, and I got that super great cameo. I didn't want to ruin that, tone that down by just trying to be PG-13 or politically correct.

I was like, "Okay, I'm going to make an adult film. I'm almost 50. I can do that now." You went for it. This is crass, man, all the way. I went for it, and I love it. [film projector]