Danielle Brooks And Fantasia Barrino To Star In ‘The Color Purple’ Movie
Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Barrino have joined the star-studded cast of Blitz Bazawule’s forthcoming The Color Purple movie, adapted from the Broadway musical.
Brooks will revive her role as Sofia after playing the character on Broadway during the 2015 production. Her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination. Barrino will revive her role of Celie, which she first debuted in the 2007 Broadway iteration of the play, according to Entertainment Tonight.
The news of the stars joining the Bazawule project was announced on ABC’s Soul of a Nation Presents: Screen Queens Rising on Thursday (Feb. 3).
As a part of the special, Brooks rewatched the moment when she received the news from Oprah Winfrey that she would be cast as Sofia. Winfrey played Sofia in the 1985 film which earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
“I am here representing all things purple to tell you that you are our Sofia,” Winfrey said. “I'm so happy to pass whatever baton from 35 — almost 40 — years ago to you. And I know you're gonna kill it.”
To which Brooks responded, “My heart is so full. I’m going to make you so proud.”
“You already have,” Winfrey replied.
Also in the special, Barrino shared how she connected with Celie’s story when she watched The Color Purple as a young girl.
“The color of my skin … my lips were always bigger, the biggest thing on my body,” she recalled, explaining how she related to Celie. “I remember being on ‘Idol,’ and we had to come up with this little thing, and I said, ‘My lips are big, but my talent is bigger.’ I had started accepting who I was at that age, but when I was younger, it was things that I dealt with — just feeling beautiful, wanting a certain kind of love, so we relate in a lot of ways.”
The casting news comes after Variety revealed that Taraji P. Henson joined the cast as Shug Avery. Additional cast members included Corey Hawkins, who will be Harpo, Oscar and Grammy-winning artist H.E.R, who was cast as Squeak, Colman Domingo, who will play the role of Mister, and Halle Bailey, who will play Nettie, a protective figure over Celie in the film.
The Color Purple is slated to release in 2023.
