Interview: Meagan Good & Cory Hardrict Talk Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black

ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black stars Meagan Good and Cory Hardrict about the thriller movie. Written and directed by Perry, the film also stars Joseph Lee Anderson, Shannon Wallace, and Taylor Polidore, with Richard Lawson and Debbi Morgan. It releases on Prime Video globally on July 11, 2024.

“Ava, a young bank professional, is devastated when her husband Dallas abandons a marriage she is determined to fight for until fate intervenes, revealing Dallas’ wicked deeds that have trashed their marriage, and once upon a time sabotaged Ava’s destiny to be loved by her true soulmate,” says the synopsis.

Meagan, what did you connect most to Ava’s journey in Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black? Because early on she’s going through this crisis not knowing who she is, and she feels like she’s wasted the best years of her life, but that isn’t true.

Meagan Good: No, I don’t think anything’s ever a waste because you always learn. You always grow. Also, you get stronger if you allow yourself to because sometimes people allow situations that are hard to make them bitter, but I’m a big believer in letting it make you better. I think that the thing that I definitely related to the most was the mentality of once she said, “Okay, this has happened, and I may not have chosen it, but I’m here now, so I’m gonna get excited about this next act of my life. And I’m gonna get excited about the fact that, in a way, it felt like something was ending, but now something is actually really beginning.”

Cory, Dallas, your character, he definitely chooses to be bitter. How was it playing someone who is obviously dealing with past trauma, but did you find sympathy with him because you’re being forced to say and do some pretty nasty things with this character?

Cory Hardrict: Did I find sympathy with Dallas? The character… I mean, I felt for him, I don’t know if it’s the word sympathy, I would use, but I did feel him because of what he’s been through in his childhood and just having no one there to support him, to listen to him, so you turn to vices, you turn to different things just to cope. It’s like you’re hiding things, you know? And then he doesn’t treat people well in his relationships.

So yeah, I would say he has some sympathy there. But he was a human character. He’s flawed, he was real, and there’s characters like this that exist. I don’t condone any violence or anything with women or anything, but that was this character, and those guys and these people do live in this world, and sometimes the best art imitates life. You gotta tell these stories because it’s honest and real.

Meagan, I was always surprised that you hadn’t worked with Tyler Perry before, and this fit wound up being just as good as I imagined. So what really stood out about him as a director?

Good: I just love Tyler. You know, I think that he is a genius. I think that he’s very unapologetic. I think he understands just exactly what the vision is, what he wants to happen, what people wanna see. For me, we were just literally looking for the right thing to work together on. When it was a thriller and a genre piece, and it was a character that I feel is really, really important to convey. I was just like, “This is it. This is amazing.” It’s been really wonderful working with him because he makes you feel appreciated, seen and valued in a way that is very refreshing in this business. So it was wonderful.

Cory, you have this back-and-forth physical scene with Joseph Lee Anderson. How was it filming that fight in Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black?

Hardrict: It wasn’t good for me. I’ll tell you that. You’ve seen how swole he is. You know, I’m only 182, but the stunt double helped me out a lot, so I appreciate my stunt double. But no, it was a well-choreographed scene. We had fun, though, but we kept each other safe because he was a thick brother. I just couldn’t budge him, and I was trying, I was really, really trying to budge him, but it just didn’t work. But it’s okay.

Thanks to Meagan Good and Cory Hardrict for discussing Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black.