Perri Pierre is not your typical New Yorker. Born in New York, but raised in the city of Les Cayes in the South of Haiti, Pierre is as much Haitian as he is a New Yorker. But he’s more of an actor than anything else. You’ve probably caught glimpses of him in the films The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Bounty Hunter, The Morgans, Brooklyn’s Finest—not to mention his roles on television. The dimpled thespian easily juggles his different careers as writer, poet, actor, screenwriter, and director. Did we mention documentarian?
Pierre has his own film production company Amis Entertainment, which has produced J-12, a short film that he personally directed. He produced and starred in another project Three of a Kind, a comedy about an egomaniac whose string of failed relationships has him questioning everyone except himself. The film premiered in New York this summer.
An actor’s life can often be filled with regrets. The role that didn’t pan out, the movie that didn’t go as planned, but Pierre says he has no regrets about life so far. He’s only human after all; he just tries not to repeat his errors, and tries his best to learn from his mistakes.
Q & A
Tell us about Perri Pierre the person?
I am very passionate, driven, fun, friendly, loyal and confident. I am family oriented and they mean everything to me. I want to inspire others to be good. I have a very strong passion for film making and for art in general. It’s very rare that a day would pass by without me listening to some music. I always say that I wish I could be a billionaire to help everyone in need, but realized that I would never be a billionaire because I would have already spent too much money helping those in need. I have tons of dreams but I am more than a dreamer, I chase them hard. I believe in God and I pray on a daily basis. I love living and having fun.
You attended Queens College and received a B.A in Drama and Theater.
It was a memorable and learning experience. I can probably say that everything that I know about Theatre, I learned at Queens College. I was very active in the Theatre department. So I gained experience both on and off stage. Luckily, I was one of the rare students who got to travel and perform with them overseas. In addition to the experience, I met some amazing people there, including the two professors that have taught me more about acting than anyone else has, J-12’s Matthew Peartree, Catherine Pena, Isabelle Parzygnat, Leo Kirkpatrick, Thomas Sauro, Danny Dzhurayev—just to mention these.
You had a rather interesting childhood. You were born in Brooklyn and then your parents moved to Haiti with you, where you spent most of your early years.
Yes. I had a wonderful childhood filled with love from my parents and my three older sisters. I moved to Les Cayes with my family when I was two. I started attending Kindergaten a couple of months later. Then I spent 12 years at Frère Odile Joseph. But I used to go back to New York every year, sometimes twice a year. I was shy, but very confident. Like I was not the kind of child that could be affected by bullying. I did some commercials there and I was part of a band with my friends. When I was nine though, my mom had a terrible car accident and she was in comma for about a week. God brought her back to life. And though the accident has been the most tragic event of my life, but the fact that she is alive right now is my number one blessing. That made me value life at an early age. It’s been 6 years since I moved back to New York but the memories from Cayes are engraved in my heart forever.
Between being an actor, a screenwriter, and a director…which role are you most comfortable with?
I am mostly comfortable with being an actor. The very second best would be a producer. Something that I have been exploring a lot more this past year. As far as the advantages, I’ll try to put it in my own words. As a screenwriter, you get to put the words inside an actor’s mouth and sometimes you can add some directions in the script. And you often come up with the story, which is paramount to the film. As a producer, you often get to pick who you want to carry out the vision of the film. If the production is starting from scratch you can even pick your own screenwriter. Frankly, you get to hire all the key crew members and sometimes the cast. As a director, you’re responsible to turn the script into a sequence of shots. You decide how the film should look. You make your vision come to life.
And finally the actor, all the work and thoughts that are put into the film is for the audience to see you perform. You get to be somebody else, sometimes your total opposite. And you are the one that everyone sees that’s why cast members are usually more popular than crew members.
The film J-12 was a written collaboration between you and Matthew Peartree.
Well Matthew and I had been friends for years and had worked on several design projects together in college before we started working on J-12. So we kinda knew what to expect from the collaboration. Moreover, we both took the same playwriting class in college so we often followed the same principles. Brief, after I had completed the story… I wrote the first draft of the script and sent it to him. And that’s how the collabo started… We didn’t really change anything with the story but we certainly didn’t agree with everything in the script. But I knew that he had very good writing skills so I often respected his changes. We both were striving for the best. And technology made stuff easier for us because we didn’t always have to meet up to work on the script. We had several drafts. When we were content with what we had, and after the movie was cast, we started rehearsing … And even after we had had started production, we were changing some stuff here and there.
But it was a good experience though, and I would look forward to another collabo with Matthew or with another scriptwriter.
Let’s discuss the film Three of a Kind, in which you played the lead role.
So Three of one kind is my second production. It was written by a California-based writer Zack Van Eyck and directed by Richie Babitsky. He also produced it with me. In the film, I play Richard, who is your average young man. Like most men, he hasn’t found Ms. Right yet… or has he? Richard seems to believe that all the women that he dated in the past had some kind of flaw or issue that turned him off. On the other hand, he himself believes that he is perfect and there is nothing wrong with him. Along myself, I got an amazing cast, including J-12’s Thomas Sauro. We shot this film for two months in New York City and Long Island. Parts of it were shot at two Haitian restaurants in Queens, Brasserie Creole and Labadee. The trailer of the film was part of the international movie trailer festival and it did pretty well. Besides dramas, you produced a documentary about Haiti, correct? Targeted towards reviving Haiti’s tourism?
Actually, my third production is a feature documentary film titled A Pearl in The Caribbean“. It’s currently in pre-production. Well, they always say that third time is a charm, this will surely apply to A Pearl in the Caribbean, because it will be my biggest production yet. From Fort Liberté to Jérémie, I plan to visit all the beautiful sites in Haiti while directing this documentary with an amazing cast and crew.
What’s next for you?
After A Pearl in the Caribbean is completed, I plan to work with others film makers that I have met at film festivals. I want my film company Amis Entertainment to grow and be well known across the globe. The ultimate goal is to work on a film by a major studio like paramount, universal or columbia. I also want to be involved in my community, both here in the US and in Haiti. I want to encourage youngsters to stay in school, to play a sport and to practice an art because that alone can prevent them from being influenced negatively.
