Tyler Perry Says Oprah Winfrey Is ‘Like Each Actor’ in This Relatable Means (Unique)

Oprah Winfrey is a boss in each sense of the phrase, however when she labored with Tyler Perry on his new film The Six Triple Eight, she deferred to the director.

The previous discuss present host, 70, is “like each actor,” Perry, 55, tells PEOPLE on the Los Angeles premiere of the movie on Tuesday, Dec. 3.

“They need to know that they are doing a fantastic job and so they need to know that the director’s blissful. She’s no completely different,” Perry says. “She wished to know that she was doing a fantastic job, and he or she did improbable.”

The Six Triple Eight tells the true story of the one all-Black unit of the Ladies’s Military Corp to serve in Europe in World Warfare II.

The battalion of 855 girls, led by the no-nonsense Main Charity Adams (Kerry Washington), got a seemingly unattainable job: Kind by 17 million items of undelivered mail, so the troopers might talk with their households again house.

Winfrey performs famed educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune, who was associates with first woman Eleanor Roosevelt (Susan Sarandon). It was their affect that spurred President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Sam Waterston) to have the ladies despatched abroad for the important mission. “No mail, low morale,” was the motto on the time.

Although Perry and Winfrey have collaborated on different tasks over time — the director has had a number of collection on Winfrey’s OWN community — this movie marks the primary time he has directed his good friend of 20 years. 

Perry, who additionally co-wrote The Six Triple Eight, had been looking for a challenge he might current to Winfrey. 

“Bringing her a possibility that she thought could be one thing that she would lean into was one thing that I have been in search of for years,” Perry explains.

“After we begin speaking about Mary McLeod Bethune, I am pondering, ‘Okay, sure, Mary McLeod Bethune it’s.’ And for her to do it —  and do such a fantastic job — is fantastic,” he provides.

In a 2022 interview with movie critic Elvis Mitchell, Perry opened up about his friendship with Winfrey, whom he first met in 2001 when he was a visitor on her eponymous discuss present.

“I bear in mind strolling into the studio and there she was on this lavender gown, and he or she had these sneakers that had silver keys on. I will always remember it,” he mentioned.

“I used to be onstage speaking to her. It was all surreal for me, and I felt very very similar to, ‘I do know you. I do know you so effectively. We’re associates.’ We had simply met. It was years later that we really turned associates, however from that second I knew it,” Perry mentioned.

“All the things you see on tv is who she is,” he continued. “To know her personally, to have her as a good friend, to have her as a confidant, any individual I can name anytime to speak about something, has been actually a deal with in my life and one of many biggest blessings.”

The Six Triple Eight premieres on Netflix on Friday. Dec. 20.