Hadn’t “The Color Purple” already been wrung dry? It has been more than four decades since Alice Walker published her epistolary novel—a long view of the oppression visited on Celie Harris, a young Black girl in turn-of-the-century Georgia—and, in the intervening years, Walker’s story has been made into a film, a musical, a revived musical, and now a film again.
There’s a spirit, and Taraji said so beautifully, “Do you feel that? If only that tree could talk.” We all just really held one another’s hands during this process. Speaking of Fantasia and her journey with this, we made sure we were uplifting our lead. I felt very empowered having Corey there, too, someone who had known me since I was seventeen. He’s been through all of the no’s. I’ve known Colman Domingo for a long time.