Oprah Winfreywho earned an Academy Award nomination for the 1985 adaptation Alice Walkernovel from 1982 The color Purpleand who’s producing the upcoming big-screen musical, can’t sing enough praises of his lead role, singer Fantasia Barrino.
Oprah attended a virtual promotional event with the director Blitz Bazawule Tuesday, and gave the former american idol wins her flowers and said she was “so deeply moved” by Fantasia, as quoted by New York Daily News.
Fantasia plays the grown-up version of Celie in the Warner Bros. film, and both she and the character share a childhood marked by physical and sexual abuse — just like Winfrey herself.
“She said this movie changed her because it allowed her to forgive,” Oprah explained of Barrino.
“She said … ‘People who come to this film will be healed … because I was healed … I came from no education. I came from sexual abuse as a youth. I came from domestic abuse, and I learned through this movie that not only could I heal, but I could forgive.”
Winfrey expresses, “So when [Fantasia] sings that anthem, ‘I’m Still Here’, she speaks to all those who have been told no, all those who have been rejected, all those who have been rejected, all those who have been allowed to believe that they couldn’t handle it, and then did.”
The talk show icon gushed about director Bazawule’s film, enthusing: “I could cry just thinking about what [Bazawule] has done with this new iteration,” calling it “a revival of joy.”
The color Purple also stars Little Mermaid to lead Halle Bailey, Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Corey Hawkins, Colman Domingo, HERand Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
The film premieres in cinemas on Christmas Day.
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