Perry on how he feels about mentoring:

"The thing about it is there’s such a small field of black actors that are recognizable and when we started looking and casting movies we realized how small that pool was. So it wasn’t me trying to break a bunch of new talent as much as it was born out of necessity to show that there are so many more people out there. And I’ve worked with a few actors who have been particularly interesting to me because of the Hollywood system and the conditioning of the town and how if you’re not in this system, if you don’t operate in the system, then what you’re doing does not really matter. If you take those people out of the equation of the few people who are African American actors, you’re down to an even smaller pool. So it’s a great thing to see new talent like Lamman Rucker. When we ran the trailer of my show with 3000 people there, his face showed up, didn’t even say his name [and] they lost it. That made me feel really great. Lance Gross, who just won an Image Award, and LaVan Davis and Cassie Davis and all of the people at House of Pain, it makes me feel really good to see them live better and be uplifters, it’s really great."

On how his films perform overseas:

"I have a huge following in the U.K. and I know that's only because of my website, not because of having any success there. Part of my problem with being with a company like Lionsgate is because they are so limited. If I were with a bigger company like Fox or Paramount, I could absolutely have more exposure around the world. But I’m not going to give up any creative control, because when that happens I start to lose the sense of my stories and I’m not interested in doing that. But I do love working with Lionsgate. If there was anything I could change it would be them having some sort of international appeal because I think these are universal stories and I think they’ll relate all around the world."

On balancing his time between films, books, his website, fans, and more:

"You know, to write a letter, like today, I could leave here and go to my house and write a letter in ten or fifteen minutes and e-mail it to the fan base. What that does is it keeps - and I’ve been doing it for years - it keeps me in touch. What I love so much about them is that if I’m doing something wrong, I don’t worry about critics, they let me know before anybody else does, ‘Tyler, what the hell were you thinking with that episode?’ So it’s a great relationship and it has kept me grounded and it’s kept me where I’m at. So I’m grateful for it."

Tyler Perry on his role in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek:

"They’ve given me a strict confidentiality agreement. All I can tell you is that I love J.J. Abrams, he is the absolute reason I did it and he could call me tomorrow and he and I have a lot of things in common – he’s got television and film. I was watching him direct and people were coming to him and asking him things and it was so eerie, because it's so much like my own life and my own situation. The only difference is he’s got a wife and two kids and I don’t know how he does it with a family. But he called - J.J. called and said, ‘I’m a fan and I’d love for you to do my movie.’ I go, ‘Great, I’ll call you back.’ I called my agent and go, ‘Who is this guy?’ He told me, ‘You need to look at his stuff.’ And I was so impressed with what he does because it parallels a lot of my own stuff."