What Characters Does Tyler Perry Play in the ‘Madea’ Franchise?

Tyler Perry is more than just Madea.

Along with the iconic, no-nonsense matriarch, the mastermind behind the 13-film franchise has taken on a handful of other roles throughout the Madea-verse over the past two decades. He’s portrayed her brother Joe Simmons and her nephew Brian Simmons in multiple installments, and introduced her other brother, Heathrow Simmons, in 2019’s A Madea Family Funeral.

“For me, I love the movies that I’ve done because they are the people that I grew up with, that I represent,” Perry said in a September 2022 interview on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace. “What is important to me is that I’m honoring the people that came up and taught and made me who I am.”

Though the director has publicly expressed his desire to retire the character — even revealing plans to kill her off in a 2018 interview on Bevy Smith’s SiriusXM show Bevelations — fan support has kept her alive. Perry reprised Madea in two more movies since, A Madea Homecoming and Madea’s Destination Wedding, the latter of which was released on Netflix on July 11.

But despite what she may think, Madea doesn’t run the show alone. Read on to find out which characters Tyler Perry plays in the Madea franchise. 

Mabel “Madea” Earlene Simmons

Perry first introduced Madea onstage in the 1999 play I Can Do Bad All By Myself in Chicago. In an October 2017 interview with PEOPLE, he admitted he was “scared to death” during his initial performances and even once apologized to the audience, only to receive a standing ovation.

The tough-yet-loving matriarch made her on-screen debut in the 2005 film Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Perry has said the character was inspired by his mother, Willie Maxine Perry, and his aunt. 

“She is the exactly the PG version of my mother and my aunt, and I loved having an opportunity to pay homage to them,” he told NPR in October 2012. “She would beat the hell out of you but make sure the ambulance got there in time to make sure they could set your arm back, you know what I mean? Because the love was there inside all of it.” 

Since then, Perry has played Madea in more than a dozen films, including Madea Goes to Jail, A Madea Christmas and Madea’s Witness Protection. Though he claimed 2019’s A Madea Family Funeral would be her last appearance, he brought her back just three years later in A Madea Homecoming.

In his interview with Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, Perry admitted he’s always been “extremely uncomfortable” in the Madea suit — but that the audience simply won’t let her go. “The minute people stop coming to see her, that old broad is dead,” he said. “She’s dead, for sure.”

Joe Simmons

Though fans associate Perry with Madea the most, he’s also played her carefree (and often chaotic) brother, Joe. The character was first introduced in Diary of a Mad Black Woman and has appeared in 12 of the 13 Madea movies. 

Though Joe has been a prominent side character throughout the franchise, he’s set to star in his own film. In 2024, the New Mexico Film Office announced that Perry would start filming Joe’s College Road Trip in Las Cruces, N.M.

The film follows B.J., a recent high school graduate preparing for a cross-country college road trip with his White friends — until his father, Brian, realizes B.J. has a sheltered view of what it means to be Black in America. Madea proposes a new plan: B.J. should take the trip with his outspoken grandfather Joe instead.

Brian Simmons

The only role that doesn’t require Perry to wear a wig is Brian Simmons, Madea’s nephew and Joe’s son. A straight-laced lawyer, Brian often finds himself cleaning up after his aunt’s legal messes and serves as the calm, level-headed contrast to his chaotic family.

However, Brian’s personal life is not as stable as his professional one. Throughout the films, he divorces his wife, Debrah, who struggles with drug addiction and has trouble connecting with their two children, Tiffany and B.J.

Perry introduced Brian in Diary of a Mad Black Woman and has played the character in a total of nine Madea films.

Heathrow Simmons

Perry has only stepped out of those core family roles once to portray Madea’s paraplegic brother, Heathrow Simmons, in A Madea Family Funeral in 2019. While he claims he became paralyzed after fighting in a war, Madea suspects it happened after he hit on a mobster’s girlfriend.

Perry told CinemaBlend in February 2019 that he enjoyed flexing his muscles with a new character in the franchise.

“Introducing a new character who gets to say things and be irreverent and fun,” Perry said of why playing Heathrow was his favorite role in the movie. “I think he and Joe need to go to Vegas for something, man. It would be great.”