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. 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.
