Tyler Perry reveals his dedication to telling the story of WWII’s unsung all-female battalion in 'The Six Triple Eight’
While Hollywood has produced some phenomenal war dramas à la “Saving Private Ryan”, “Dunkirk”, “The Thin Red Line” and “Fury”, actor, film-maker and playwright Tyler Perry has latched onto a compelling true-life story with “The Six Triple Eight”.
The war drama, written and directed by Perry, unpacks the lesser-known story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an all-black and all-female battalion, in World War II.
The segregated black Women’s Army Corps, helmed by Major Charity Adams (Kerry Washington) and her second-in-command Captain Noel Campbell (Milauna Jackson), are reassigned to Glasgow where they are given a seemingly impossible task of clearing a two-year backlog of undelivered mail within a six-month deadline.
They are forced to live in uninhabitable conditions and endure numerous racist and sexist attacks, which makes their task even more difficult.
The film features a phenomenal cast, which includes cameos by Sam Waterson (Franklin Roosevelt), Oprah Winfrey (Mary McLeod Bethune) and Susan Sarandon (Eleanor Roosevelt).
I got the wonderful - not to mention rare - opportunity to interview the Hollywood heavyweight ahead of the film’s release on Netflix. Professional yet unassuming, Perry was refreshingly candid about how the project landed on his lap.
“Nicole Avant (a producer and political activist), whose father Clarence Avant was known as ‘The Black Godfather, called me up one day and said, ‘I really feel like you should do this movie. It’s called ‘The Six Triple Eight’. She told me the story and sent me the sizzle reel,” he explained.
Perry added: “I thought, this really happened, there were 855 black women in World War 2 in Europe and she said, ‘Yeah’. That was what started it all for me and it was a snowball effect after that.”
Several things stand out in the film: the powerful script, deft direction and wonderful cast, who not only transported the audience to that period but kept them emotionally invested in their triumph in the face of adversity and humiliation.
While the film is based on Kevin M. Hymel’s novel “Fighting a Two-Front War", Perry was invested in telling the story of the all-female battalion as authentically as possible.
As such, he met with some of the survivors before they passed away.
“I would say about ninety percent of the movie is factual,” he pointed out. “Also, I met with two survivors who just passed away, one was a 100 when she passed away and the other was a 104.
“And their memories were so sharp and so clear; they were able to share so many things with me so that lent itself to being very factual and the vision that we had for it.”
Washington’s performance received high praise. Of course, the actress, who serves as an executive producer on this project, is known for her tour de force performances, whether it's for a film or TV series.
Celebrated for her performance in “The Fixer”, she also stole the show in “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Unprisoned”.
Perry, who shares a long-standing friendship with Washington, said she was his choice for the role.
“For sure, she was the person that I wanted but I wasn’t sure that I could get; I know that her fullest potential as an actor hadn’t been tapped into yet. There are so many different levels and gears that she has so I knew that she would be perfect for this role. When she said yes, we were really, really excited.”
Interestingly, they previously worked together on “For Colored Girls” in 2010, where she played Kelly Watkins.
He added: “Being an executive producer of the movie, she saw quite a bit of it; all the different iterations of it getting to this point, so she’s very, very happy.”
Equally chuffed to have Winfrey in the movie, Perry shared: “Because Oprah is not a Madea kinda girl, I was waiting for just the right moment to offer her something and Mary seemed so appropriate for her - just where her status is in the world and today - is great because of parallels of both women. For her to say yes, again, is just terrific.”
Perry paid painstaking detail to the casting and, based on the reception of the film, his efforts paid off.
“As I was writing the script, I had different visions of the women in my head. It’s immediate when someone comes into the room and you recognise the voice; I would recognise the look and I go, that is Johnnie Mae Burton (Shanice Shantay) or that is Vera Scott (Jeanté Godlock).
“I was clear about the women when I saw them,” he shared.
“And Ebony Obsidian, who is in one of my shows, ‘Sistas’, I always saw her as Lena Derriecott Bell King from the time I wrote the first sentence. Getting to have her be a part of the movie was phenomenal as well.
The drama is also underpinned by Lena’s bittersweet love story.
Perry smiled when I noted the subtle change in the tone of her story arc.
He shared: “Before I even wrote those lines, I flew to Las Vegas and met with Lena King, who was 99 years old at the time. I didn’t know what to expect, what kind of frame of mind she would be in or what her health was like.
“She comes down the stairs, full make-up, hair done, looking beautiful, sits across from me and goes, hello Mr Perry, so glad to meet you. I was blown away by it.
“Her retelling of the story immediately brought me to her and Abram’s life. Also, understanding the dialogue of that period, there was a dignity to it, there was a harmony to it, there was a cadence that the women of the day spoke and I wanted to make sure that we honoured that and got that right.”
While Lena’s first love story was short-lived, she got a do-over, which is captured in the film.
The director added: “She remembered meeting this private and he was singing ‘Sweet Lorraine’ to her. He said to her, I was going to get married and then I met you.
“And she was like get outta here with this foolishness. Well, it turned out, that he did get married and came back, they found each other and got married. They were married for 57 years. That part of that story was true.”
The “Beauty is Black” creator feels blessed to have this project land on his lap.
He added: “The pressure of doing it right and getting it right in honouring these women because when they came back from war, a lot of them went to regular jobs and there was no fanfare, there were no ticker-tape parades for them, it was all about them just going on about their lives.”
“The Six Triple Eight” is a truly sublime piece of cinema that pays tribute to the unsung heroes of World War II.
∎ “The Six Triple Eight” is streaming on Netflix.