Wise but sassy grandmother Tyler Perry said this week that he'd never heard of renowned director David Fincher and never would have acted in the Gone Girl movie if he'd known it was so mainstream.

Perry, who is now making the publicity rounds for the film, gave the strange interview to a New York Magazine reporter, claiming he'd never heard of the Academy Award-nominated director (or used a computer?) before signing on to play a defense attorney.

Fincher's adaptation of Gone Girl promises to be full of surprises – and Perry's involvement got the ball rolling when he signed on. The entertainment mogul behind the Madea franchise rarely appears in films he doesn't direct, write, or produce himself. When he agreed to play Gone Girl's charismatic defense attorney,Perry wasn't familiar with the film's inspiration or its A-list director (whose films includeThe Social Network and Fight Club). "I probably would have walked away from it. If I had known who David Fincher was, and his body of work, or if I'd known the book was so popular, I would have said, No," he admits. "And my agent knew that! He didn't tell me until after I signed on!"

The comment is especially strange, considering (as a few commenters have pointed out) that Perry just came off playing Alex Cross, a character derived from the bestselling, pulpy James Patterson series.

But alas, it's a Tyler Perry ™ world and we're just living in it—probably being played by Tyler Perry.

[image via AP, h/t the Blemish]