When we finished that shot, I laid on the ground like Mary J. I felt successful, for real, for the first time. So to finally get to that place where there are so many people in charge of making this thing happen, this whole team effort, and I'm in the center of it with Tyler Perry. And it was just this big moment of like, " I'm doing what I want to do." And sometimes it doesn't feel like that. And I am one-on-one with Tyler Perry right now and I feel like I'm holding my own, I feel like I'm in here." I didn't have any imposter syndrome, which I normally have. There were fireflies, I had never seen fireflies before. And I'm like looking around and there's this whole crew of people on this major motion picture film set and I just had this moment. And there are these extras walking down the streets - and I've been an extra - and there are extras driving their cars down the street - I've driven my car as an extra. And we're outside and there's this crane lowering down, swooping over Tyler Perry's shoulder to catch me. So this is a one-on-one with an A-list celebrity, creative, unique person in the business.
This movie is mostly big groups all in the scenes. This is after a bunch of drama just went down and I have a one-on-one scene with Tyler Perry. The cameras are still on, and that could be the take, so I gotta just do it. So I, as Tim, have to just stay seeing my great-grandmother, stay talking to my great-grandmother, even when he's doing all these other things because any second it's back to me. He's the director and the actor so he's not really calling cut, the cameras are still rolling, so he'll direct, and then it's back into the scene.
So he's like, "Lester, I need you to move the camera over the shoulder for Brandon this way" and "Then, uh, baby, the next thing…" and we're back in the scene. He goes in and out of that Madea voice like completely seamlessly. What are you talking about, Mr. Tyler Perry, with your director hat, and your Uncle Joe hat, and Madea wig." So it was really humbling to work for somebody who was still humble while also being able to steer the ship. It's still like, "Did y'all get a tour of the studios? Thank you so much for being here, thank you for lending your talents." I remember him saying that to me and laughing, like, "Thank you so much for being here. He's a Black man from the South and you feel it working with him, no matter what hat he has on. Of course, I had a small pang of fear because I was like, "We're gonna be talking about this." But I was like, "I'm gonna do it anyway." And that's a little bit of what it was to book a gay role. I forgot who gave me that quote, but I think about that all the time: You gotta feel the fear… and do it anyway. I want people to know that when you're at that place, you gotta just feel the fear and do it anyway. Tim knows himself and it's now time to bring that information to his family. I wanted to be so solid with knowing what I was doing so that way I could take their questions and know what I needed to say back and be sure.
I wanted to make sure that I knew it wasn't a phase. That's why it took me so long to come out to my family. And that's what your goal should be, to be solid in yourself. I hope that straight people see that this is just another dude or whatever, and for gay people, I hope that they see that owning yourself can pay off. Tim is the eye of a storm of crazy-ass family members, so I hope, straight or gay, you see yourself in Tim. Just like you can cast straight people to do gay roles. To me, that means, you should be excited, casting directors, to cast me in gay things and straight things because I can do it all.
I wouldn't really be talking about it in this way if it wasn't related to the work. I say we should talk again after this because this is certainly the most spotlight that's ever been on my sexuality. I still get auditions for straight characters. Because I do want to play gay characters, but I want to talk about what they're gonna be. That was the moment I made a more specific turn into it. So at one point, I decided I wanted a gay agent on my team, like specifically that, because I wanted to be able to have some of the more nuanced conversations about gay characters. I'm not closeted by any means, but I also realize that there are some of us who have to continually come out. There was a moment when I made a more definitive decision to be more open about it. You know, I think we should talk again after this and see if that changes.