{"id":1235738115,"date":"2023-12-12T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/?p=1235738115"},"modified":"2023-12-13T13:16:05","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T21:16:05","slug":"color-purple-stars-interview-oprah-fantasia-taraji-henson-danielle-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-features\/color-purple-stars-interview-oprah-fantasia-taraji-henson-danielle-brooks-1235738115\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah and ‘The Color Purple’ Stars on the New Musical Remake: “It’s Bright. It’s Vibrant. It’s Us”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n\tOf all the emotions that The Color Purple<\/em> evokes, joy is typically not among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tAfter all, the movie based on Alice Walker\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel centers on a Black woman who suffers unspeakable sexual and physical abuse from the men in her life, sees her children taken away from her at birth, lives during the punishing times of a post-slavery South and is belittled by the outside world as unworthy of love. While her journey, told through her letters to God, eventually arrives at an intersection of peace and forgiveness, joy is something that seems fleeting for much of Celie\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tThe musical remake of the 1985 classic film, out Dec.\u202f25, doesn\u2019t change the narrative, but does filter it through a different lens \u2014 focusing on the moments that inspire Celie, the women in her life who lift her to that point and, more important, the healing that restores not only her humanity, but that of those around her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tReflecting on the story, the three female stars \u2014 Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks and Taraji P. Henson \u2014 speak in reverence of the original film and the book. Henson likens it to Shakespeare for the Black community, and Brooks says, \u201cI\u2019ve been describing it as our cinematic heirloom. And I just really truly feel that\u2019s what it is. It\u2019s the thing that you cherish the most that was passed on since 1985. You take care of it and you pass it on to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n