Perry O-gledg Winfrey brand
CANNES — Hollywood powerhouse Tyler Perry is actually two people — often battling two voices in his head.
“This guy is cool . . . the other guy here is a straight thug,” Perry said during a panel discussion here on Wednesday with MediaLink CEO Michael Kassan.
“This guy is Barack Obama, and this guy is Donald Trump,” Tyler said, drawing a fine point on the differences between his alter egos. “I try to limit him to 140 characters. It’s tough.”
His reply gently sidestepped Kassan’s somewhat complex question on the creative community’s role regarding a brand’s image, when consumers may see ads running next to explicit content.
The entertainer, who launched his namesake production studio Tyler Perry Studios in 2006, knows a thing or two about building a business — and he stayed on message, retelling how he grew his own brand. Calling
Oprah Winfrey his “mentor,” Perry said he has drawn inspiration from the billionaire mogul’s ability to create her own empire.
“Just watching Oprah do what she did and how she did it and ownership and owning her show and how she collectively built that brand to where it was, was definitely inspirational,” he said.
Later, Perry plugged his multiyear deal with Viacom, which he signed last year. It begins in 2019 and runs through 2024.
The deal was seen as a blow to Winfrey’s 7-year-old OWN network — where Perry had a deal since 2012. Perry explained that the Viacom deal gives his work “more options” than at OWN — including a possible Tyler Perry over-the-top streaming service.
“OWN is one channel. Viacom has many, many channels,” he said. “I’m also really excited to work with [Viacom’s] BET for the first time . . . and bring something fresh and exciting.”
During the session, the 48year-old star admitted that he “took a lot of heat” during the 2016 #OscarsSoWhite effort for what some saw as him not pulling his weight.
“I didn’t want to get into it,” Perry said. “I respect all the people who were fighting for a seat at the table, but I was building my own table” — referring to his Oprah-worthy efforts to build Tyler Perry Studios.
“By having a group of people who haven’t had their shot in Hollywood see that I’ve been able to do this has been such a beacon for so many people which is so important and so powerful to me,” Perry added. “What I know for sure is that when people start to reflect on the problems that we have, when those people rise to power, those problems go away. So it’s great to fight for a seat at the table, but at the same time I think more of us need to build our own tables.”