When they got started, the laughter just kept coming.” Patrice Lovely, minus her old-age makeup. We used to do stuff or say things just to get them all hyped up. “Myself, my siblings and my cousins, we would be cackling. “The thing is, they didn’t know they were funny,” says Lovely. Complete with a catchphrase - “Ain’t that niiiiiice!” - the character was inspired by Lovely’s own grandmother and aunt.
Today, she’s best known for a role she created for a gospel stage play: Hattie, a feisty 76-year-old with a distinct voice that somehow sounds like an elderly baby. That last gave Lovely a taste for gospel music, which led to her releasing two independent albums and working as a singing ringmaster in the UniverSoul Circus. At one point, the family was on welfare, but her mother went on to work at a shirt factory and as a pastor at a Pentecostal church. That’s a mess - but it’s a good mess.”īorn in Jackson, Miss., Lovely, 51, was raised by her mother in Hamilton, Ohio, and Troy, Ala. “She is trying to comfort the bereaved, and you know how that goes with Madea. “Hattie is in mourning with the family,” Lovely tells The Post. Following the past two flicks in the series - “Boo! A Madea Halloween” and its sequel - Hattie returns for the latest, “A Madea Family Funeral.”
One such secret weapon keeping the franchise fresh is Madea’s close pal Hattie Mae Love, played with manic glee by Patrice Lovely.
But fans of the Madea Cinematic Universe long ago figured out that each movie is chock-full of outrageous characters along for the ride. Sure, audiences have flocked to theaters ever since 2005’s “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” to see what crazy antics Tyler Perry’s straight-shootin’ granny would get up to next. Tyler Perry on Madea's muumuus and pearls: 'I won't miss any of it'