The reason why I decided to come aboard for this amazing new ad ation of The Color Purple was really because this movie has meant so much to me and my family for so long I mean I just can tell you the amount of stories that I have with this film from remembering
When I was a little girl and just always having it play somewhere like in the background or watching it watching my mom and dad watch it and it just means a lot that you know something that means so much to our family Generations I can
I’ll be a part of netti is an amazing character she is a fiery Spirit she is so filled with joy and just wants to live um she has this very curious mind and curious spirit and I think that’s what I love most about her I think it
Means so much to be a woman in this film I think this film in particular shows the different shapes and forms that we have as women and what we endure um and the pain and the Heartbreak and even through the midst of all of that how we
Can still come out with such love and beauty and strength surrounding us and um you know that’s the beautiful thing about this film is the fact that it shows all the layers it is of a woman what it is that you go through as a journey of a woman when I first heard
The music of the film I was just like blown away and honestly I am just a fan of all of the people that are involved in this film I mean the amazing musicians like Tamila man and her and you know Felicia and Fantasia and taji
I’m just like what how am I here and so just kind of watching everyone just be superb at their craft the color purple and its Legacy means the world to me I mean when I talk to my grandmother about what this film means to her her eyes
Light up and when I look at my grandmother she is a figure who is just has so much wisdom and strength and courage and I think that that is something that this film represents I think the color purple has endured for so long because people can
Relate to the ups and downs that the film kind of bestows on all of us I think that you know although it’s a very deep and dark and painful story you know there’s such a light at the end of the tunnel messaging it’s one of those stories that
Everyone can feel a part of themselves and you can see a family member you know this story it doesn’t matter who you are you you can identify someone in the story when you are um remaking a historical film you and it’s it’s a dated film you in order to get the newer
Generation you kind of do have to tweak it and update it a little bit this entire cast was handpicked by Blitz and I mean he had a vision and he fought for everybody in this film and I’m just so grateful because I don’t think he could
Have put together a better cast what I love about Blitz and when he first approached me about this story he was like it’s a great marriage of the book The Original film and the stage play and what I love about this version of the film is tapping into the joy blitz’s
Vision is not leaning on the sorrow and the pain and the trauma but how black people and how we have been able to miraculously turn our trauma into Joy it’s very spiritual in my opinion um I mean it’s it’s the full gamut of the music back then it’s Jazz it’s Blues is
Gospel it’s and then when we get to the end we bring you up to date with some of the you know um um music of today’s music and that’s just um when you talk about Black Culture you can’t talk about it without music you know you just can’t
I decided to actually uh be a part of this film because of the legacy of this film of this story of the book um the legacy of Oprah Winfrey of Quincy Jones of Steven Spielberg and I think that they were gathering a team of artists
Led by Blitz to um tell this story about not only this family um I’ll just say in this community but uh of the story of uh black people in America everything is is is is speaking to each other you know the the music is speaking to the dance
And the dance is speaking to the text and I think then you cast actors and musicians like um me and my comrades uh people who like you know it’s part of exactly who we are and our own personal mandates of how we Infuse that into our
Work so I think it’s a perfect marriage taji is a hurricane taji is a volcano taji is pure passion and light and she’s um honest she’s one of the most honest actresses that I’ve worked with I love working with her Fantasia is the color purple in every single way I think Fant
Anasia and I have had many conversations on what she believe where where she believes she is in her Evolution as a performer in this space now she knows how to sing and perform down but this is a new space for her and I feel like we’ve been watching her flower Corey
I’ve admired Corey for many years I know Corey from New York theater circles and this is our first time ever working together and we we have we’re so much alike actually we have I think the same work ethic I think that we have the same
Uh sort of spirit around work and how we get it done I think um he’s become such a dear brother of mine I really love working with him Blitz is truly a Visionary he is um a visual artist in every single way I think what I love is having conversations with blitz and
Finding out what’s in his brain what I love is that like if there’s an organic beautiful moment happening he’s very aware to capture it as well so he’s always watching that’s what I that’s what I actually really I’ve been appreciating about him as well he’ll watch what you bring he doesn’t hamfist
You into something that he already had in his head he knows the world and he’s trusting his actors to say fill it bring all that you have and then we we’ll we will we will play with it like clay Oprah said it to us actually on the on
The day that we did our read through how this is a gift and we have to acknowledge it as a gift because we change lives with this gift and you really hope to do that with every project you work on some a bit more special in others this feels like one of
Those very special ones that I I know that many generations will View and they will see who we are um and the stories we’re trying to tell about our families uh their triumphs their tragedies their losses their Joys The Way We Dance the way we move the way we love the way we
Fight to love each other um I think it’s a tremendous Legacy it is endured because it’s such a complicated tragic yet hopeful story of um how we can persevere I think that’s why that story is so important it’s like yeah African-Americans in America have not been treated well we’ve not been treated
Well by this country we’ve not been treated well sometimes by each other but through all that adversity we will always survive we will always create we will always innovate we are the most Innovative people in the world the idea that we’re still here through all everything that we have gone
Through and everything that we do go through and we’re still we can still dance we can still sing we can still love and have families um it’s extraordinary so that’s a tale and that’s a tale not only for African-Americans but for everyone I’ve said many times it’s not your Mama’s
Color purple but your mama going to love it she’s going to love it because I think we all certainly I am uh have a great sense of loyalty to the original color purple that changed my life more than anything any other experience of my life The Color Purple changed my life uh
In a myriad of ways that I won’t go into here but um my affection and uh you know appreciation for that version um uh remains but this is a magically realized inside cel’s imagination inside C’s thoughts we interviewed uh a number of people for the possibility of directing this film
And it was a slam dunk 100% everybody in the room said that’s the guy when Blitz made his first presentation and his first presentation was um storyboarded with these ideas of magical realism his vision for what this movie could be comes alive in a way that I think will excite and stimulate and
Delight the audience the essence of the message of this film continues to be the essence of the message of the book and the essence of the Broadway musical and the the essence of the original film and that is God get pissed if you don’t notice the color purple and that is the
Root of gratitude spiritual acknowledgment that there is something bigger than yourself well we have such an incredible ensemble cast I mean this cast is fire okay from Coleman Domingo to Corey Hawkins to uh teraji obviously Fantasia in the starring role the root message for me is that love heals first and foremost forgiveness
Heals forgiveness beginning with yourself and then being able to extend that to other people and the healing takes place the great thing about this film is like when you go to a good church service and the choir is singing and everybody’s on key you stood up and
You were singing and you filled with the Holy Spirit and you come out of that service and you feel full you just feel full you feel like I got enough to carry me through the rest of the week to I get back and get some more that’s what the
Color purple is going to do for people it’s going to fill you up and carry you to the next week when you go back and get some more and see it again I think when you’re cast in a movie like this one and it’s a musical and it’s produced
By Steven Spielberg and Quincy Jones and Oprah you don’t say no I think cely stands for hope she stands for perseverance and determination but I think the best way I can answer that I think it’s most authentic and fair to S say she stands for herself the music in
This film is amazing because I think it hits every single spectrum of black and African-American music throughout the times we have gospel we have Blues we have you know little Vaudeville music and we even have pop songs and it kind of just shows again how ingrained music is in African-American and Black Culture
I remember when I first met with blitz we had a zoom and he told me his like mission statement was to Showcase Blackness on every spectrum and I think simply just if you want to just go from the cast standpoint we have so many different skin tones hair textures you
Know facial features so he’s already covered there and I think what he’s doing is really showcasing Blackness as authentically as possible I think many people say this but the color purple was one of the first things that I saw that I saw myself in you know I saw what be
Goldberg was like I think I want to be an actor I can do that and not only that but I think it’s amazing to see how those actors and the people that were in that film almost were like seeds that were planted and you get to watch them
Grow and become these things and bear their own fruit and bear their own trees and start planting their own Gardens I think that’s that part of that Legacy is amazing I think it’s endured and it’s relevant today because I think most people at some point in their life can
Relate to feeling disenfranchised and feeling inferior to someone or a power that be whether it be family or work or school people can relate to being an underdog and I think this film and this story is so special because you meet sely when she is young when she’s going
Through the Tresses of that of what it looks like to be abused as a young kid and then you see her grow and she keeps growing and you grow with her and I think it’s very rare that you get to watch somebody live spectrum of like of
A full human life and watch them grow and I think the audience is growing along with her I just hope that audience is can really feel the love and care that went into the retelling of the story so many of the cast and crew are here simply because they have a
Connection to the color purple and I think on a greater scale I hope that audiences can take away that our stories are actually really similar even though we are all different come from different backgrounds we we are very much the same and that you know if we can have a
Little more empathy for each other we can all win in the end in the way that s filey wins in the end Danielle is a very strong black woman uh Who has fought her way through this industry standing out from The Stereotype as well as myself as well as
Sh taji and she’s not afraid to say what she wants to say I noticed that when we were off camera and I would say to her you are Sophia in real life she would laugh I’m like it it’s true and I believe that I’m sely Blitz couldn’t have picked us out in I
Mean perfect pigs opr bro H just having her here knowing her story knowing that she played in the first color purple having her here makes us really be on our p’s and q’s because we want to forfill uh the vision that she sees for Color Purple the musical we don’t want
To disappoint everything that she put in she told us her story how she got the road what it meant to her and because of that we all bring in we’re bringing our a game to make her happy she is a woman of color who has paved the way for us
All who has shown us that you you can do whatever you want to do as long as you put your mind to it nobody stopped her nobody stood in her way she had to knock down some doors but she did it and so for us we’re going to knock down doors
With this movie for her and every other black woman out there the singing the dancing um the costumes oh tweaking the story here and there it’s a bit different it it fits this generation Everything grows everything changes so we don’t want to change the movie because the grit of the movie is
What makes it so good but we want to connect with the younger generation and um I think that we did a really good job doing that everybody who’s a part of this movie down to the dancers put their heart and soul into it because all we can remember was our
Ancestors we are out here on some of these grounds and we look at the trees and we look at certain things around us and we’re like the people who came before us who did not get to see what we’re seeing today let’s give it our all
So that we can remind our young people that you’re a king you’re a queen you were placed here for a reason love each other protect each other listen to one another so many messages in this that you have to see how could I not come
Back to Sophia I I mean it’s she’s so much fun to play she’s so complicated um and I really she’s super challenging uh to step into her shoes because she goes from this fiery firecracker you know that is actually very chill until you poke the bear to
You know falling um and to Rising again and I really enjoy stepping into her shoes because it’s so true to life I really feel like Miss Winfrey really stamped Sophia um as one of the most iconic roles in America Cinema like what she did with that character she left
Such a great blueprint for me to follow and has really made my job much easier um between her and the words of of um Alice walker uh it really just made you know my work um much easier to to get into Sophia and discover who she
Is I think Blitz truly is a visionary Mary I think the cast was cast so well I feel like this overwhelming feeling too because we all know especially as black people how impactful this has been for the community and after watching that knowing that we have the potential to
Hold that same impact for the Next Generation really blows my mind I was very excited about them refreshing the music and they definitely did even with hell no had a slower Tempo originally and they sped it up and like rejuvenated it and I just really thought it was fresh and new The
Color Purple is still relevant because we are still dealing with a lot of these things such as race discrimination or abuse as women um um or even just uh self-abuse and not loving ourselves um and we as people will always be learning how to cope how to love how to forgive
You know so with that in mind this movie will always be relevant um and the thing that I love is that it keeps the story of black women alive not forgetting where we come from and how far we have have to go but how far we’ve already
Come and that’s really cool um so I definitely feel like this is a film that will never die and I don’t think we’ll let it die for Fantasia this is her first you know big film and she’s leading the cast and I have been on shows where you either don’t feel
Supported because something might be new to you and people feel like well how did you get in this position but like no deserving of this moment and I think she did an incredible job and um I think that’s what Sisterhood is about as we see in the movie it’s like helping one
Another to be our best and to realize our potential and to realize that we can do and be whatever we want to be and so I think we lived by that onset and offset this movie is about healing it’s about forgiveness it’s about love it’s about picking yourself back up no matter
How strong or weak you might feel that you can always get back up again Bliss is a Visionary I feel like God just knew that he was the one to do this when I watch that film I felt like he hit every micro detail he didn’t miss a beat I’ve
Never seen myself lit that way I just was just Fel felt like he cared so much about every little detail and he he also gave us and me I felt specifically me this room to just trust my instincts and he didn’t let us hold anything back so
I’m very like grateful to Blitz um for seeing me for allowing me to play this part for his demeanor on set I was so in awe of how he handled people with Grace I don’t know if I can look at the camera y’all mie it’s so good I mean if you’re
Into film go see this movie if you have not been to a theater in years because of the pandemic this is the one to see this is the one to see with your family your aunts your sororities your fraternities this is the movie to see with your grandma M with your
12-year-old daughter um because this is us as black people specifically this embodies all of who we are the good bad ugly in between so please go see this film The Color Purple Legacy is everything cuz you get to see black women just come into their own and
And find their voice in a place where they felt voiceless and um yeah I think it’s it’s such a it’s such an important movie it’s such an important film to the culture so I’m just proud and excited to be a part of it there’s so many messages within this
This movie within the story of The Color Purple I think the main one is like never lose hope audiences are going to get so much joy from this movie just because of how beautiful it is um and I hope that you know we capture the essence of the original film while
Giving some people this fresh New Perspective and this this new feeling I think the aesthetic of it is going to be crazy and the music mixed in is amazing on top of this incredible talented like crazy legendary cast um I think that uh people are going
To really enjoy it Blitz is amazing he’s so collaborative and he just has amazing Vision like he I don’t know how he did it all but he just there was like I said that level of comfort on set and and the level of fun and of course the challenge was there but he
Really told us he was very intentional about making it our own and really embodying the characters the way we would not saying okay you know Oprah made this choice or you know Ray Don Chong made this choice so do that it’s more like how do you embody the
Character in who they are and not necessarily who they were um and that was really really cool and I think we really did that um because of because of that advice like it’s a new color purple um and it’s it’s great he he killed it you just got to experience it like I
Can’t really put it into words like I said I was speechless when I saw it but it’s just so beautiful and it’s so new I think everybody like the cast really cemented these new characters like I’m so happy like my younger sister this will H this will be how she’s introduced
To the color purple you know um it’s just a it’s just a whole new reimagined version but you’re getting the story just in a in a fresh way Bliss is uh out of his goddamn mind and you need your Geniuses to be like that I don’t want to saying Genius Like
If you’re saying don’t nobody want that Benjamin Franklin was outside with a kiteen a key in the thunderstorm his friends Wen out there they knew he was insane was like yeah he’s still out there looking in the sky like yeah I want my genius is insane and that’s how
Bliss is he is out of his mind color purple’s Legacy means you know just uh uh making it right just it’s it’s it’s a movie that that that pinpoints making it right that’s how I feel it just makes it right shows the struggle and shows the outcome
Of it and you can people identify with that struggle to this day you know even though it might be a modern day struggle but it’s still the same that’s what the film is about it’s about faith and spirituality I mean without that is you have nothing at all and that’s all the
Characters have to lean on you know whether it’s embracing God or blaming God God has something to do with every as aspect of this movie it’s an iconic iconic film um to have anything to do with this film is is an honor you know um anything I hope it does what the
First one did it brought families together had everybody talking it was dialogue left and right just talking about what if what they would have done what they think they would have done how they would have played the situation their faith in God how they hold their faith up people probably going through
The same thing right now to look at that and and pull strength from what they see out of the movie and see how she becomes Victorious and and and and gets on her own feet or whatever so I want everybody to look at this knowing somebody in a
Situation like that or if they’re in a situation like that to uh look at this and pull pull some strength out of it and uh you know become Victorious themselves it’s going to bring together the new generation as well as the old generation everybody’s going to come together and they’re going to have
Dialogue again I’m that’s what I’m thinking that’s what’s going to happen and um I believe that it’s going to be just a a a a good piece of a good piece of material to to to uh Bridge gaps the color purples Legacy to me is an expansion of Canon and the expansion of
Canon to include the black mythological figures these These are now just like you look at Greek mythology these are now American stories American myths I think anything that has a depth of humanity that expresses something that is universal while tapping into the the questions of the time we’re
Living in so it is current at the same time it is Universal at the time that color purple came out there was a question that we’re still grappling with a black identity and understanding how we can really affirm our Humanity when there’s so many things that particularly
What you talk about Jim Crow you talk about the Civil Rights Movement all these things that are trying to strip it away marginalizing those voices and and our voices really needed stories that connected to our Humanity not just the struggle um and and particular black women you know it’s incredible to have a
Story like this and I think that’s what makes it Universal because the struggle of of affirming your humanity is something that many all of us across time in Generations have experienced different cultures and different forms have have had to fight for the humanity to be affirmed so uh a story like this
Came at a timely moment and is a universal struggle there’s a lot of messages it’s an intersection of a lot of different things it’s um it’s lineage and the power of lineage the power of how uh generational curses or things from Generations past affect the way that everyone’s life unfolds um
And how you can break those chains or how you can create um you can perpetuate them it’s a story of female empowerment it’s a story of of of true friendship that’s there’s there’s many great messages it’s it’s a human story and that’s what makes it ultimately great
And enduring is that it was just so well done I first got the call for Color Purple um maybe about six months a few months before we started production I have been working with Scott Sanders and Mar Jacobs on in the Heights um and John TR was directing
That and I’ve been bugging them forever because I knew they were doing the color purple and I was like how in the world can I get on this movie I really want to play a heart pooke the dancers in this film just make this film they are
Incredible you know me having a a few steps here and there and I’m breathing heavy I can’t keep up Lord Jesus it’s it’s a lot but um the dances are just awesome blitz is on the same page with all of us all of his actors and so it’s
Just his attention to detail is just Epic from the moment we talked about the vision and the story boards and where he wanted to go with it you know that if a director says I got you you know you trust them first of all Fantasia’s voice
Is uh once in a generation right like I don’t think there’s anybody else who can reach down and pull I’m talking like my great grandmother God wrest her soul before she passed she she loved her music you know what I mean like she she Fantasia especially because my great-grandmother’s a pastor and when
Fantasia sings gospel music it just um it takes you it transports you it’s interesting I I would say uh uh you know Oprah and Scott they all talk about all things purple right like Divine and um I don’t know what the Legacy means to me at this point because I’m in
It you know I think it’s one thing when you can sort of step away from it and look back on it I wonder what that’s like for Scott for Oprah for Alice Miss Walker like what that is just like to to to see something and it become incred an
Incredible piece of art and then see that change and then that’s an incredible piece of art and so they’re still in it so I’m like do they know with the Legacy you know so I can’t even begin to I’m just joining this family and I feel so blessed to join the color
Purple family the audience has to bring all of their experiences to the film I’m Different you’re different I don’t care if we look alike or we don’t look alike when you come and sit in that theater I can’t tell you what to expect all you’re doing is you get to peek behind the
Curtain and see what it is that we’re about and and what this this little this very specific time period and it’s very specific these very specific people you get to see what that is and that’s all you can ask you know and and uh if if if
They come back and talk about it then it’s a job well done but I I have a suspicion we’ve been talking about Color Purple this long I think we’ll be talking about it for years to come I remember when I read Alice’s novel um years ago and I found myself so moved by
C’s journey in particular I found this protagonist one of the most remarkable women SL people that I had ever read about fiction or otherwise and um I found this classic triumph over adversity story in many ways moving inspiring sad joyful all of the above but I found y’s ability to put one foot
In front of the other day after day after day and move forward notwithstanding her obstacles and the things that were challenging her in her life and not only to be loving to other people Sophia Suge Harpo but also then towards the end of the story to find her
Own self-love and to feel like a fully realized person that she can be independent she can be whoever she wants to be and that her trauma doesn’t necessarily have to affect her full life I feel that when someone sings There’s an emotion a heightened emotion that
Happens and you can really get to the core of some very intimate feelings when you sing and of course Steven and Quincy’s movie had music in it I mean there’s a lot of great beautiful music composed by Quincy and his team uh for that film but a but a full-on um book
Musical if you will that the stage musical was um really gave us an opportunity to sing more and and I and I feel like this is such an emotional story such a heartfelt story such a spiritual story that it would be ripe for adapting it in a musical form
This color purple film is really a combination of a lot of different elements from stemming from Alice Walker’s novel so the source material if you will for this movie is Alice’s novel The Stage musical some Easter eggs from Steven Spielberg’s movie and an entire new vocab Abul of magical
Realism I um got a phone call said they were remaking the color purple and um you know of course when you hear that you go that can’t be me you know I mean the bar is so high on the original it’s a Steven Spielberg it’s a it’s a pit a
Prizewinning book it’s Alice Walker it’s a Tony award-winning Broadway show right so you quickly go I you know there’s other there other Hills you know and um I I um I eventually read the script and I was like something here there’s something I can do here and and there’s
An opportunity um to create something new and create something that is that is mine and and so one meeting led to the next and um you know put together a great pitch that really um showed we had a vision um and and and there was a path to making something that was truly
Unique The Color Purple follows the Journey of cely um an African-American woman uh growing up in the rural South in the early 1900s um she is forced to marry a man mister who’s abusive um who ends up separating her from her sister and begins a cycle of trauma along her way
Cely meets two extraordinary women who transform her sh Avery and Sophia and they kind of inspire her to become this person who then attracts the things that she wants I knew that our film will have to be an amalgam of all these inations right of course beginning with
The Holy Grail which is Alice Walker’s brilliant p it’s a prizewinning book um that for me was the Bible we’ll always be able whenever we were lost we knew that we could go to Alice Walker and we will find our way Steven’s film gave us kind of the Cinematic version and the
Broadway show gave us the musical but somewhere in between all of this we had to find what would be our glue and that’s was what was going to be on us and also we knew that we were bringing an imaginative quality that only our version has um and so that
Imaginative quality became almost the glue that held all the parts together um but it needed to be grounded you know as as far as I believe anything that is imaginative or what people will call magical realist the realism part is the critical part because you can easily get
Off course and go off the reservation trying to be uh abstract right and so grounding the film in Alice’s brilliant Arc then made sure that anywhere we went we could always return to the ark and that’s really I think what gave us our wings this is a a
Brilliant Ensemble you know I’m I’m one of the luckiest directors in the world to have the level of skill and talent um and also Rich depth like everybody brought a wealth you know my job as a director is to allow space it’s to create space for these artists to be
Artists I take no responsibility and and no credit for what they do my job is just to create the Environ and make it real and push them into that corner and allow them to be that you know and and people like Danielle that’s all they
Need you don’t have to say much you show them the world world you tell them you believe in them you tell them you trust that they’ll find it and they always do I never look at any people as a monolith you know no one’s just sad no one’s just
Happy we isolate between Joy and Pain that’s what life is so I find it quite unrealistic and quite one-dimensional that any story could be SB and certainly the story of African-Americans in this country is one that has constantly isolated if you think about the brutality that has been survived for hundreds of
Years Joy is critical to survival and there’s always been Joy even with you know in in the worst circumstances so I say that to say for me it it was easy it wasn’t even a thought I was like you we’re just going to keep bouncing back and forth and that
Is a human story and that’s why what I also know makes this story Universal because we can all identify that isolation between Joy and Pain and cely story is exactly that I always say this you know when you’re you don’t just cast your cast you cast your crew as well you
Know it’s the same thing it’s an energy you need people who can be proximate people who even if they are not culturally you know aligned um can be eyes because that’s your eye you know that those that person is going to be more approximate and if they see Beauty
In in in in the things you see Beauty in um then you are you have a chance of making a phenomenal film I mean she just has a natural way of motivating and getting people excited cuz she is truly deeply excited about this work I mean this movie changed her life dramatically
Radically and so when she’s there it’s not for the Fanfare it’s it’s because she truly believes that this work heals you know and and um every time you know we went through a very challenging prod production period um we struggled with covid we struggled with weather and to maintain morale for
72 days of these very extreme and oscillating emotions you every now and then you need somebody who just shows up and lifts us all up and that was uh Oprah yeah it was it was magical to have her we’ve decided very consciously to contribute to the cannon of the color
Purple and take it to a place that it has never gone to and you know there’s going to be a group who are going to show up expecting Steven Spielberg’s color purple and I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised um that we could add to um and for something that this story and this
Special um we were able to add to something that so historical and um certainly young people are going to find themselves in it and and and those from an older generation are going to see um elements of it that are new and and and but all still maintaining its grounded narrative We
Inherited um slew of music from the Broadway show and our biggest job was to figure out how we were going to take that music from Broadway and make it cinematic uh one of my biggest jobs out of everything was to also create a level of proximity to audiences
Today just because it’s music said in in 1909 does that mean that it has to be only instruments from 1909 I think that the power of this film is one that galvanizes Community it is one that has always galvanized Community it has big moments of humor big laughs it has big
Trauma and it has big tears and I think that those are things that those are the releases that are even more special when it’s in a public place because it’s it’s it’s it becomes contagious right and I I really believe that cinematically the work that we’ve
Done deserves to be seen on the biggest screens possible he is the right director because first of all he’s so nurturing and he pays attention to everything the bow on the Hat the bow is too much the shoes the car you know um the chore choreography how
The camera’s moving um he’s he’s putting the pieces of the puzzle together as he’s filming it he was interested in us owning these characters and making them our own he wasn’t interested in you know um any anything that the original film was he was just paying particularly particular attention and Care took great
Care in telling the story cuz the story St is the story you know and the colorization of it it was a light film it wasn’t dark you know it still had mood and Moody moments but it was it was alive and it was vibrant and it was full of life like black
People that’s what we are even through our struggles we learn how to laugh and dance and sing the only way you’re going to get the full effect is to see it on the big screen all the movement all the you know the choreography the song and dance and it’s such a family oriented
Piece that you kind you need to be with people with a group of people and and the best way to do that is in in a theater so the color purple holds a solid base of of of spiritual and emotional power for me and in just every
Way so to be it’s it’s absolutely a full circle moment for me who wanted more than anything in the world in 1985 to be a part of this film not knowing one human being in the film industry and having this role come to me and now
Being able to Full Circle put it back out into the world in the form of a musical nothing nothing means more to me the story endures because for every woman and man who has suffered who has been invisible who has felt unseen and unvalued this is their story of coming
Into yourself coming into your own having that glorious self-discovery reflected to you through the image of someone else the first movie will always and forever be a classic can’t touch it right we’re living in different times now different generation so I think that it was very
Clear clever for them to uh kind of touch it in a different way Blitz went in and killed the music of course like he brought a 2023 swag to it um that kids can relate to you know because we’ve been singing those songs for a
Long time now I did Broadway what 15 14 years ago woo says my age um and you know when we when we heard the revised music and the things that he put to it and uh the song that Haley brings to it like it it’s perfect it’s just right why
Was Blitz the right director for this fil because of his heart because of his heart he actually cares the entire time we were filming some of the hard scenes for me he checked on me he he handpicked everybody himself even when when they said no he fought for us he’s invested
In it he spoke about his mother the story is with his mother so this meant something to him and he never left us always checked on us it’s hard you can’t make a film like this or remake a film like this if you don’t have that type of heart he has
A good heart I think his heart is the color purple I think we’re living in a time where we need healing healing messages healing music healing sermons like we need healing and I believe that through this movie families will be healed
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