The New Yorker Radio Hour - Danielle Brooks Comes Full Circle in “The Color Purple”

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

“I think of ‘The Color Purple’ as the epic of our time,” Doreen St. Félix said in a conversation with the actress Danielle Brooks.  While St. Félix admits, “I wasn’t convinced that we needed necessarily to have a new envisioning of the story—which has been a novel, which has been a film, which has been a musical twice over”—she finds that Blitz Bazawule’s film, which opened at the end of 2023, is different from its stage and screen predecessors in significant ways, reflecting the concerns of its millennial cast and director.  The actress Danielle Brooks has played a critical role in the work’s transition back to film. In 2016, the “Orange Is the New Black” star was Tony-nominated for her performance as the no-nonsense Sofia, and she is now earning strong Oscar buzz playing Sofia on film. The transition from stage to film dramatically changed her performance. “Being actually in Georgia, feeling the hot Georgia sun, being on plantations, actually holding a ten-pound baby and having to be careful with that child,” Brooks tells St. Félix, “opens up the world. Now I feel like I was painting with an endless amount of color.” Sofia was the role first portrayed onscreen by Oprah Winfrey, in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 version, and Winfrey is a producer of the new film. “Huge shoes to fill,” Brooks says, of Winfrey. “But I feel like she really allowed me to be the cobbler of my own shoe.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. A new version of The Color Purple is in theaters now. It was released just at the end of the year, just in time for award season. It's a story that's been told and retold over four decades since Alice Walker's best-selling novel was first published. The Color Purple is unique in the canon of black female literature. because of how many lives and shapes it has taken over the years. Doreen St. Felix is a critic for the New Yorker.

Alice Walker's novel was first adapted in the Steven Spielberg film, which I think we're all very familiar with, in part because there are these scenes that became so iconic. You told Hoppo to beat me. It was that mu, Paul. Old Joy, the Mew, I tell you, I was out to try to try to plight at the Northfield. And the mule just went crazy. I think we live in an era of remake after remake after remake.

I wasn't convinced that we needed necessarily to have a new envisioning of this story, which has been a novel, which has been a film, which has been a musical twice over. And all of the intellectual worries or anxieties that I had dissipated in the room. because what the film created was a sense of fantasy, a sense of magical realist escape. I was very moved by the idea that a young black male director and his young cast could decide to take this monolith, this cultural story that is absolutely, you know, it's an amber,

and decide to change it, decide to make it reflect. what they see to be the concerns of black millennials of today. I think of the color, purple, the musical. You walk out of it feeling a lot lighter, almost as if you've just watched a fairy tale. And it's a very interesting choice, and I loved talking to Danielle about the reasons, the justifications, with respect to choosing to tell the story on that register.

Danielle, of course, is Danielle Brooks, who starred in both the 2015 stage, version and in the new film. She plays the character of Sophia, who was first portrayed on screen by Oprah Winfrey. Doreen spoke with Danielle Brooks about acting in Winfrey's shadow and much more.

I saw the movie maybe two months ago. And it was a really small screening. It was a bunch of journalists, and you know, journalists don't like to be emotional when they watch a movie. Oh, really? They like to be professional. But for me, it was a completely emotional experience.

specifically because I kept thinking, I kept doing this like twinning in my mind. Coleman Domingo playing Mr. You're thinking of Danny Glover and you're thinking of him inheriting that. I'm watching you playing Sophie and I'm thinking of you inheriting Oprah. Fantasia inheriting Whoopi.

This is also Fantasia's first feature film. And that is what is so particular, I think, about the black performer community is that it is small forcibly for reasons that we all understand but then it does create this like amazing um yeah i don't know inheritance is the word to use for it i love that there is this inheritance this symmetry that happens this crazy this lineage right that you start to find yourself in and i also have a meta full circle moment sitting here with you and talking because i saw you oh my gosh um on broad

way I went with my friend and I had mostly known the color purple at that point as Alice Walker's text and then Steven Spielberg's film. And I think sometimes it can be hard to track what is adapted from what. So the musical is adapted from the film. And so there's these layers of change and adaptation. And now having seen the film, I was wondering like if you could speak to how this story maybe expands or contracts when it's just, having to be just on the stage. Oh, yeah. Versus, you know, I think you guys shot down south. Yes, we shot in Georgia. Right. So what's your experience of having the location change and how to take this story? Question is night and day in a lot of ways.

Yes, our adaptation, which was directed by John Doyle in 2015, it was stripped down. It was bare stage, just wood, as you saw, just chairs in our imagination. And the audience had to go on that ride with us in our imagination. But with film being actually in Georgia, feeling the hot Georgian sun, being on plantations, seeing slave houses behind us, actually holding a 10-pound baby and having to be careful with their child, it opens up the world. And now I felt like I was painting with an endless amount of colors. I've enjoyed stepping into both, you know, exploring Sophia so deeply with eight shows a week for a full year of my life. I know her very much inside and out. But there's so much more discovery now when you are, you have everything that you need.

Right. I think of color purple as being the epic of our time, especially, you know, both you and I are black women. And my copy of color purple I got from my mother, who then gave it to my sister, who's older than me, and then I read it. And I think what's interesting is as you age with the story, you maybe feel your identification shift. For sure. Because Celie is, you know, the heron, and she's been described as beleaguered.

She comes from an environment that's completely shaped by abuse. And then she's able to go through kind of like a feminist awakening. And I was wondering, what's your relationship? with the character having grown, you know, since being in the revival in the mid-2010s to now being a mother, having been married. Yeah, my life has changed a lot. Right. When I stepped into this role in 2015, I was 25.

Right. And I was very single, which I kind of needed to be, like, shooting oranges, new black, and doing color purple at the same time. But the life experience was different. My confidence was different because I'm not. also still coming off of a lot of nose. And so I, it was, it was very interesting playing Sophia because when I had become Tony nominated, I had imposter syndrome. And I immediately was like, I don't understand how I'm in this position. They're going to understand, like, the audience is going to

see me as a fraud, you know, how could this beautiful thing be happening? to me, which is super odd, because I did do the work. It's so crazy how our brains work, you know. But it was singing hell no every night that pulled me out of that fear. My life, I've had to fight. I had to fight my daddy, had to fight my brothers, my cousins, my uncles, too. But I never, never, never, never, never thought I'd have to fight in my own house. And what's hell no about? Hell no for Sophia is about obviously saying hell no to the abuse, right? Saying hell no to gender norms and to the oppressor and really finding your power.

But for me every night It was about saying hell no to my fears Saying hell no to this notion that I'm not enough That I'm not worthy That's what I was fighting Battling every day on that stage And now Playing her

Having become a mother I have a beautiful four-year-old girl Name Freya She's the lock screen on your phone She's the lock screen on my phone Yes, wearing purple And then becoming a wife now Learning what commitment means

Which is so crucial to the story When it comes to Sophia and Arpo And I just really love Like when I think about her being so radical Like these are women That are coming straight off of slavery Right And for her to

You know really try to break The cycles of abuse within her marriage. You know, this is a woman who had six children when kids were being killed, you know, thrown into the seas or snatched away from them as we've seen with Ceeley's character. And so, yeah, there's pieces

that I've definitely taken with me now, playing Sophia. Right. I am interested in your relationship to your castmates. I was reading, I think you, Fantasia, Barino and other people were involved in a talk a couple of weeks ago. And during it, Fantasia, who also was in the musical, described playing Seeley as a cross. And it's been a cross that she hasn't always been able to carry. And I wonder about, I guess, like this psychological

state of exactly what we were just talking about, bringing your life experience to bear on these characters. Like, what was the space like between each? other, given that pretty much everyone had either performed in the musical before or at least had a really deep emotional relationship to the text. Like, what was it like when you guys were filming? Spiritual from day one. The first day we shot the last scene, which is us around the oak tree, which we call the Miss Oprah calls the Angel Oak tree.

But you can truly, I mean, we're in Savannah, Georgia. There are truly slave houses right next to us. You can see them. It's the most haunted city in America. I mean, I live there now, and I was born in Georgia, and I grew up in South Carolina, so I get it. You can't help but think about, like, the brothers and sisters that might have been lynched on those trees. You know, there's a spirit, and Terragi said so beautifully, like, when we were there, like, do you feel that? Like, if only that tree could talk, you know?

So it really did start out very ancestral because what we know is that this thing that we're doing is so much bigger than ourselves. The healing that has taken place not only within the cast, but also that permeates to the audience. I remember being in the theater and when we're singing the final number and we say amen. Then audience members are holding each other's hand. They didn't even know each other. And they are grasping for each other's hand and crying because there's a healing that truly was happening and that is now taking place again.

I've known Coleman for a long time. Sorry. Getting emotional because there's just so much to be grateful for. Being that today, I can call myself a Golden Globe nominee and I think about the journey and running into Coleman Domingo on 42nd Street. And at the time I was having so many odd jobs trying to pay my rent and going up to him and him saying, after me expressing, you know, I hope there's a place for me in this industry. I really don't see it in him encouraging me and saying, no, you got to keep going.

I don't know you that well, but I can tell there's something. in you, you have to continue to go. I'm just in awe of how this journey with Color Purple has come so full circle for me. And after, you know, getting blessed with so many jobs that I've had, this is still in my 11-odd years of being in this industry,

my first studio film. You just, it's a cutthroat business. That's one of the first things I learned was like, oh, this acting thing that I just deemed as like fun, play, my therapy, my happy place, there's a business attached to it. And it's not always fair. And it's not always kind. And it's definitely not for the week.

So the fact that I've just gotten to this point in my career, When I've wanted to give up and throw in the towel, I'm grateful for my journey. I'm sorry, I'm crying. No, you make me cry. Did you or the cast members develop relationships with performers who had done the roles before, whether it's in the film or in the musical? Yeah, I've definitely formed a bond with Ms. Oprah Winfrey. once she called me on that Zoom to personally pass the baton.

I am here representing all things purple to tell you that you are our Sophia, Sophia. And a lot of people are like, how do you have any pressure? You played it for a year. I mean, Ms. Oprah was there almost every day on set. Oh, really? Yeah, watching the most iconic scenes. But huge shoes to feel, but I feel like she really allowed me to be the cobbler of my own shoe. Right.

She still held my hand through the journey because Sophia, as we know, as you said, is not an easy character to play. So there were moments where, you know, you have to shoot things over and over and over again. And you think that you've, like, shed that scene. Like, you're done with that scene. they come back two days later and they're like, we want you to shoot it again. And this is the dinner scene. And what was the dinner scene? The dinner scene was the pretty much is almost like the 11 o'clock number.

It's the final, you know, big hoop-hop, hoopla, like everyone is coming into their own. At this moment in Sophia's life, she, her spirit is pretty much dying. It is, she's a shell. Because she's just been in jail for many years because she refused to work. from Miss Millie and talked back. That's right. Right. So the world has now killed her song,

killed her spirit, taking her song and killed her spirit. And she finds that strength again in that moment. When Seeley stands up for herself, she begins to find her strength again. That's Danielle Brooks, who's in the new film of The Color Purple. She's speaking with Doreen-Sanfélix,

and she'll continue the conversation in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We'll continue now with the conversation between Doreen Sanfélix, a writer on culture for the New Yorker,

and the actress, Danielle Brooks. Brooks cut her teeth on the show, Orange is the new black. And she went on to have a key role in the color purple. She played Sophia in a 2015 stage revival of the musical, and she plays the character again

in the new film version, directed by Blitz Bazalewale. This new version is pretty different from its predecessors in some very interesting ways. Doreen says it reflects the concerns of its millennial director and cast. It's got a feeling of magical realism. The pain and the trauma are still there,

but it's undergirded this time around by a sense of joy. So here's Doreen, speaking with Danielle Brooks. In this film, we get more of hard both development as a character, and it does feel like it's addressing questions of masculinity that, frankly, aren't really addressed in even the book and the film adaptation. 100%. The fact that this was directed by a black man has opened up parts of this story that we didn't even know existed, because how would we? You know, the perspective of Steven Spielberg

is much different from our director, Blitz Bazaulay. There's so many moments, like what we're now discovering, like with Corey playing Harpo, like how that box was open, you know, and we're brought into his world, and we're seeing who he truly is and what he's fighting against and the relationship between his father and him trying to fight against what he's being taught and how, you know, Mr. Can't fight against what he's been taught by his father. We get this generational lineage of trauma that we didn't see before,

and that was built out of conversations had with Blitz in the rehearsal process. I love one thing that Blitz did. And at first I was like, what is he doing? But there's a famous line where Shud comes in for the first time to Mr. and Seeley's house And she sees Seeley and she says, you show is ugly. You show is ugly. And at first I was like, that is an iconic line. How are you going to get rid of that?

And then I realized after hearing Blitz talk about the reasoning, here we go again, if he would have kept it in, perpetuating this thing where black women put other black women down. She's been put down enough. Is it really necessary in this rendition to continually have that happen, have a black woman speaking ill of another black woman? So I really just appreciated that, that just thoughtfulness of what are we saying to this next generation. So I just loved that we, as a collective, we're very conscious of,

the storytelling. I'm beautiful. The truth of the matter is that the original color purple is an imperfect book. That's what makes it so alive as an organism because other authors are able to come in and draw aspects from the book out, more into the forefront, and then also choose to shuttle away certain other things. And I think the way the relationship between Seeley and Shug Avery, who is, you know, she's the vision of glamour. She comes to see Mr. They have this off and on relationship.

She's a jazz singer. So she kind of represents, like, black culture. She's a symbol of black culture in the early 20th century. And before, you always think of Shug as, like, completely dominating Sealy. And their erotic moment is not one that's necessarily based in love. It's based in like curiosity and other things. But in the film, the moment is unlike anything I've ever seen before because it creates a kind of montage where their song together, Fantasia and Taraji,

puts them into the world of like entertainment. They're dancing together. They're imagining being on the same level field where Sili is as glamorous. And that was something I really appreciated when you think about. about the fact that people tend to forget that the color purple is a queer story. Mm-hmm. I love that. Right.

Yeah. I love that we went there. Even though everyone should see this, even though everyone will connect to it, this moment for the black community to get to see two black women loving on each other is so crucial. A lot of it comes from generational. behaviors of self-hate, but also homosexuality being deemed as horrible, which I do not believe personally at all. But I feel like because people, the aunties, the uncles, the great-grandmothers love this story so much, this is an opportunity for them to look at things a little different. really understand what love is about

and I think that's what you get with Cili and Shug it's not the sexual portion of it it's about the love teaching each other how to love each other how to love themselves Blitz did not shy away from that they did kiss for way longer in our version than the last you know

but as you see like when they did the version in 1985 how much pushback they got from different organizations like NWACP. And it's like, look how far we've come. Absolutely. Thank God. We are moving in a better direction.

So I just love that element in our story. Thank you so much, Danielle, for spending time with me today. Thank you. I love speaking with you. The New Yorker's Doreen St. Felix, speaking with Danielle Brooks. Brooks plays Sophia in the color purple, which is in theater's Now, and you can always read Doreen San Felix at New Yorker.com. Dancing the tango, Priscilla Presley, and her partner Louis Van Amstall.

All right, so what happens on the show is that half the dancers, one in each couple, is a professional ballroom dancer. These people are champs. And each one of those ballroom dancers is paired with a so-called star. Well, that is the throaty, inimitable. voice of Joan Aka Chala, the New Yorker's longtime dance critic. There was nobody better on ballet and modern dance, the classics, but Joan was perfectly happy to analyze dancing with the stars, too, and she was great on gossip. She was the higher version of TMZ. Although the show makes a sort of pretense of exploding sexual stereotypes, so the women talk about how tough they are and what

competitors they are, and the men go through the homosexual anxiety business where they wonder whether dancing is going to, you know, challenge their status as heterosexuals. Be too girly for them or something. Exactly. Actually, the stereotypes are very much in force. I loved Joan Acicella's voice. She would always begin her notes with a throaty dearest and then have at it. hilarious, brilliant, discursive.

Or you'd call her and wait out 14 rings and get her answering machine. She'd love to screen her calls, but then she would panic and pick up the receiver and scream, yes! And the conversation would begin. And her voice on the page, her voice in her essays, was unbelievably vivid. I sometimes thought she wrote like a combination of Virginia Woolf and an old-fashioned sports writer, as if she were watching her 200th performance of George Balanchine's jewels with all of ballet history in her head

while joyfully puffing on a stogie in the corner of her mouth. Joan could be tough, she could be disapproving. She was no patsy for the dull or the aggressively earnest. But as a critic, Joan Acochella was a lover above all. Her passion for Balanchine left you passionate for Balanchine. not because she was dictatorial in her judgments, a bossy critic, but because she was so winning and so convincing. And so thanks to her attention to something of enormous value,

you took notice too. You followed in the wake of her sensibility, and your life had changed a little. And so how do you thank someone enough for that? Joan Akachella died a week ago, and I'll tell you what time well spent is. Time well spent is reading Joan Akachella's work, any of Joan's work, and you can find a hell of a lot of it at New Yorker.com.

Everybody here is grateful for that. I'm David Remnick. That's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tuneiards with additional music by Louis Mitchell.

This episode was produced by Macon. Spalton, Adam Howard, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, and Louis Mitchell, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandra Decker. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.