No one really wanted us, Henson tells EW.
If they want you, they hire you right away.
We’re not stupid, we know how it works.
Danielle Brooks and Taraji P. Henson at CinemaCon 2023.Ethan Miller/Getty Images
But Henson credits Bazawule for believing in all the little engines that could.
I’m watching people who have been due their flowers for a very long time, Bazwaule said.
DANIELLE BROOKS:First of all, it’s so much fun, man.
Illustration by Sarah Madden
It was so much fun.
It’s very rare that you get to do both theater and the movie and play the same character.
So in the beginning when I was doing the Broadway show, it was just a bare stage.
Fantasia Barrino and Taraji P. Henson in ‘The Color Purple’.Ser Baffo
Nothing but wood, some chairs, and your imagination.
I was using sheets to be a baby, folding it up like a baby.
We didn’t have a juke joint.
Danielle Brooks in ‘The Color Purple’.Everett Collection
I didn’t have 10, 11 white men to attack me during the white mob scene.
I didn’t have that stuff.
The story gets deeper.
Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Barrino in ‘The Color Purple’.Eli Ade
Ser Baffo
I love how this film makes flush the love story between Celie and Shug.
Taraji, can you talk about what you felt being a part of that?
TARAJI P. HENSON:We kind of shunned it a little bit in the original.
Taraji P. Henson in ‘The Color Purple’.Everett Collection
So we were able to really explore that.
And it wasn’t even about sex.
That was literally about love, the tenderness of love, and what that looks like.
And I think that’s just beautiful.
And I think Blitz did an amazing job with that.
Sometimes love is not coming from your partner.
It doesn’t mean you have to lay down with this woman or have sex.
It’s the tenderness of love.
Sex is fleeting, but the love is everlasting.
BROOKS:I wrote in my journal, After these 70-plus days of playing Sofia, I am depleted.
I’m so tired.
It physically took a toll on me.
Steven Spielberg at the 71st Academy Awards in 1999.TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty
How I got into all of the depths of Sofia truly was about calling on the ancestors for me.
So I spent time with them.
I called on them, my grandmother, my great-grandmother.
And I wanted people to really see us as Black women.
We carry so much pain.
So when you release that thing, it’s really hard to come back into it.
Getty Images; Focus Features; Warner Bros; A24
So to have to keep doing it over and over, I had to lean on my cast.
HENSON:We felt so horrible for her.
I didn’t know: Do I straighten my hair?
Da’Vine Joy Randolph in ‘The Holdovers’.Everett Collection
Do I keep it curly?
And do I lose weight?
Do I gain weight?
Christian Friedel in ‘The Zone of Interest’.a24
I didn’t know and I stayed true to myself.
And thenOrange Is the New Blackcame around and I was able to be authentically myself.
No makeup, didn’t have to wear no Spanx to work.
I got to be myself.
And it reminded me that there is room for all of us, but this industry is very difficult.
And I did seven years on that show and struggled with not being recognized.
Barry Keoghan in ‘Saltburn’.Amazon Prime
So I had to do some personal deep internal work, like, why are we doing this?
And it reminds me that’s really what this all is about: helping other people find their purpose.
I dream of that too.
But at the end of the day, I know my worth.
I validate myself, and my purpose is to be a light for someone else to find theirs.
So as long as I stay focused on that, God’s going to make a way regardless.
is really beautiful, a beautiful part of this journey.
And I’m grateful.
He did that for all of us.
Enzo Vogrincic in ‘Society of the Snow’.Netflix
He believed in all of us.
And what pains my heart is that I don’t want to hear these babies having the same fight.
My prayer is that the work and the fight and the struggle is to make it easier for them.
And I’m like, how can I make it different?
This is bigger than me.
It’s bigger than us.
What am I doing?
Is it just for vanity?
Art saves lives, art changes lives.
And so I get this position, this coveted position in this industry that never gives us a break.
And sometimes I just get so enraged because it’s like, I’ve done all of this.
Well, what about all of this I’ve done?
That doesn’t count for anything?
It’s almost like every time I got to start from scratch.
But I never compete with Black women.
I’m never going to talk down to a Black woman.
Like, that’s what it’s all about, right?
HENSON:And you know what bothered me?
That was a headline.
Why is that a headline?
Oh God, Taraji P. Henson hugs Viola Davis.
What else am I going to do?
I’m happy for her.
That’s what I would do for any friend.
It bothered me that that was a headline and you could hear the hush in the room.
Everybody’s like, What?
You don’t do that for your friends?
This is what it should look like.
This is how it should be.
We root for each other.
When you win, we all win.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
“STEVEN SPIELBERG| BEST DIRECTOR, 1999 |SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
Heat Index | Contender or Pretender?
When it came time to shoot this eye-poppingSaltburnscene (below), something was bothering writer-directorEmerald Fennell.
But on the day of filming, Fennell changed her mind.
I spoke to Barry in the morning, and I just said, I dont know, Barry.
I think that he would…unzip, she recalls with a devilish smirk.
And Barry just said, Yup.
She plants seeds, Emerald, you know what I mean?
Keoghan says of his director.
She knows that they’re going to grow, these seeds, especially when she plants them withme.
I was totally on board for it.
Armed with Keoghans gung ho spirit and a rain machine, they shut down the set.
It was a total discovery for him, I think.
And it was sad.
It was very, very sad.
People said, Oh, we know whats going to happen.
Why do we have to watch it?
And I said, Watching it is the point!
Not cutting away is the point.
More stories featured in EW’s 2023 Awardist Oscar Kickoff
HowSociety of the Snowdirector J.A.
Bayona’sSociety of the Snoware the victims and survivors of a 1972 plane crash in the snow-covered Andes mountains.
But recreating those horrific events was no small task, as seen in a new behind-the-scenes featurette above.
“to capture the reality of the situation, we were shooting in similar conditions,” Bayona explains.
“So we shot in real locations with snow…
The shooting plan was changing nonstop because the weather was changing nonstop.”
“It’s a very physical scene.
It’s a scene that needs to hurt, it needs to provoke the same emotions they went through.
It’s almost like a horror [movie],” Bayona says.
“That was the most fun thing that we recorded.
We had this plane that was moving.
There was a little wind and your friends would just go and fly behind you,” he recalls.
