After much anticipation, The Color Purple was released in theaters a couple of weeks ago, on Dec. 25.
Surpassing box office expectations with the largest domestic opening on Christmas Day in over a decade, the film adaptation of the stage musical grossed $18 million, according to Forbes.
The film, which was produced by Oprah Winfrey, stars American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino as Celie, Taraji P. Henson as Shug Avery, Danielle Brooks as Sofia, and many more renowned actors.
Fantasia previously played the character of Celie on Broadway when she was in her early 20s — and she admitted that her experience wasn’t too positive.
For years, Fantasia swore that she wouldn’t reprise her role in The Color Purple because of how draining the experience was. But this changed when director Blitz Bazawule approached the star with his vision for the 2023 adaptation, which Fantasia was completely on board with.
In fact, Fantasia’s latest performance as Celie recently earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy, something she said she’s super grateful for.
“I’ve said in interviews before that I would never play this role again because of post-traumatic stress, but I am so glad that I didn’t allow fear to stand in my way,” she said last month.
Meanwhile, Danielle Brooks also previously played her character, Sofia, on Broadway in 2015. She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance.
Like Fantasia, Danielle reprised her role in the latest adaptation of the film. And this week, she sat down with IndieWire to discuss the reality of shooting one of the movie’s toughest scenes.
In the film, Danielle’s character, Sofia, is beaten and later arrested by a large group of men after refusing to work for a racist housewife.
Danielle explained that she wound up shooting this scene over the course of two days, which ultimately “really took a toll” on her body.
“I ended up having to do that scene over the course of two days for multiple hours a day, and it pulled my back out,” she shared. “Swinging back and forth trying to get the mob off of me.”
“Of course, we have an incredible stage combat leader, and his crew were fabulous,” she went on. “But doing it over and over, that really took me out, where I had to do physical therapy and go to the chiropractor for a few weeks to recover while still having to work.”
Danielle explained that on Broadway, the arrest scene was “stripped down to just a bare stage with wood and wooden chairs,” and therefore wasn’t even seen by audiences.
“You just see me come down center stage and fall to my knees, and then you’ll see I lift my head up, and now I’ve transformed into a new version, a downtrodden, spirit-stolen Sofia, which I can sustain for a year,” she said.
And so, Danielle noted that actually shooting the scene proved to be very different. “Having 10 to 15 guys surrounding you, and you wanting to put everything in it because you want it to make sense from every angle, to not feel like you phoned it in. ... I pride myself on being a physical actor. That’s where I live. I love finding how I can use all of my body for the character. I just want to use everything that I can,” she said.
Danielle went on to admit that she was left “so drained” and “depleted” after playing Sofia.
“To me, a lot of it has to go back to the ancestors. I call it blood work because you have to go down your bloodline and talk to them, or at least I did, and pull from Black women in my family and Black women just in history that have experienced things like this,” she explained.
“I think about those women, and it’s hard to shake those stories. I wrote in my journal at the end of it; I was like, ‘After 70-plus days of playing Sofia, I’m completely depleted.’ I was so drained,” she added.
