Out Actor Brandon Black Brings Poignant Performance To Madea’s First Openly Gay Character

Brandon Black can be seen starring in Netflix and Tyler Perry’s highly-anticipated film A Madea Homecoming.

The ninth film in the widely successful “Madea” franchise, follows the iconic and beloved matriarch, Madea (Perry), bringing together the family to celebrate her great-grandson, Tim’s (Black), college graduation.

A Madea Homecoming (2022), Tyler Perry as Madea

Tim is the Valedictorian of his graduating class and is planning on coming out to his great-grandmother and family at the celebration; he is the first openly gay character in a “Madea” film. Homecoming is set to release in February 25, 2022.

On the television side, Black starred as Kordell Washington across all four seasons of Justin Simien’s critically-acclaimed Netflix series, Dear White People opposite Logan Browning. Following students at the fictional Ivy League institution, Winchester University, Kordell is a member of African American Student Union (AASU) and is nicknamed Pastor Kordell as he also leads a faith group on campus.

Photo: Anna Jung-Hwa Photography

Black, an only child, was born and raised in southeast San Diego, California by his mother with a helping hand from his late grandmother. Throughout his adolescence, he modeled and attended acting classes, and quickly his family saw that he was passionate about a career path for the first time.

A few years later, Black put together a presentation for his family on why they should all pitch in to help him pay to join the Screen Actors Guild, stating that “Denzel has one of these same cards in his wallet that I’d have in mine”—it worked!

While attending Santa Monica College in Los Angeles, Black was also training at Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) and studying with renowned actors and teachers, Brad Greenquist and Saxon Trainor, to name a few, all while picking up survival jobs to make ends meet.

When not on set, he enjoys learning to play guitar, attending music festivals, caring for his house plants, snowboarding, traveling and spending time with friends and family. He is also an avid supporter of numerous organizations close to his heart including Black Lives Matter, Los Angeles LGBT Center, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), Angel City Pit Bulls, SAG-AFTRA Foundation and Motion Picture & Television Fund.

Black currently resides in Los Angeles with his beloved rescue pit bull, Malik, adopted from Angel City Pit Bulls. A proud member of the LGBTQAI community, Black is an advocate for rich and diverse stories that showcase Black and gay characters, and is looking forward to playing an array of roles throughout his career.

Variety: Netflix dropped the trailer Wednesday for Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming, the 12th installment in the iconic franchise.

“Black don’t crack… unless you’re using it,” Madea says in the trailer for the film, which will center around her great-grandson’s college graduation, where hidden secrets and family drama threaten to ruin the celebratory reunion.

Perry —  who has been playing Madea since 1999, when he first debuted the character in his play, I Can Do Bad All by Myself — was planning to retire his gray wig after 2019’s A Madea Family Funeral and his 2020 live Farewell Play Tour, but changed his mind after the pandemic hit.

He told Variety in 2020, “I was done with Madea, completely done with it … But as I’ve been looking at the state of the world — and I finished a tour in January, just before the pandemic started to break in the country — and the amount of joy and laughter that it brought to so many people, that’s what I think is missing. We need that laughter and that joy.”

The film is the first Madea installment to premiere on Netflix. Since 2005, the franchise has grossed more than $670 million at the box office, according to Forbes. But the collaboration is not Perry’s first with the streaming service — Homecoming follows his 2020 film, A Fall From Grace, which reached 39 million households on Netflix in its first month, and will be joined by his upcoming project, A Jazzman’s Blues.