Danielle Brooks Talks Lone ‘Color Purple’ Oscar Nod

Danielle Brooks knows The Color Purple’s Sofia inside out. She spent a year as the boisterous wife in the Broadway revival in 2015, and boasts that she knows everything from the character’s Zodiac sign to the color socks she wore. A decade before her fiery onstage performance, a 15-year-old Brooks admired Felicia P. Fields as Sofia in its initial run on Broadway, whose defiant demeanor made her vulnerable to racial violence. Despite her lifelong ties to the role, she still had to prove herself for the big budget movie musical. 

“Nobody can say it was handed to me,” says Brooks, who auditioned for six months for the role. “I earned that. I worked for it. I did chemistry reads with Corey [Hawkins] and I put myself on tape singing ‘Hell No!’ and had meetings over an hour with Blitz [Bazawule], our director. I did everything that I was asked to do.” 

The Color Purple, adapted from Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and the Tony-Award winning musical based on it, follows Celie (Fantasia Barrino), an abused, Black woman and housewife to Mister (Colman Domingo) who finds her value in the company of women like Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson) and Sofia, a high-spirited wife to Harpo (Corey Hawkins) whose light dims after becoming a maid for a white political family.  

After a call from the original Sofia — Oprah Winfrey portrayed her in the 1985 film adaptation of the 1982 book — and reprising the unrestrained character onscreen, the 34-year-old actress is the lone Oscar nominee for The Color Purple (a stark contrast from the previous film’s 11 nominations). This nomination helped the actress achieve her EGOT nominee status — snagging her first Grammy win in 2016 for The Color Purple’s musical theater album. 

“I’m still in disbelief,” Brooks says. “Not disbelief, I do believe. I do believe but for this moment to be here now is crazy, and hopefully one day we’ll actually get to lock all of them in.”

The Juilliard-trained actress starred as the booksmart Taystee in Orange is the New Black, the gospel singer and activist Mahalia Jackson in Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia, a black ops team member in the The Suicide Squad spinoff Peacemaker and as Dawn in the upcoming Minecraft, which she described as “Sofia fighting, but [in] a different way.” 

Rolling Stone talked with Brooks about exchanging digits with newly discovered cousin Sterling K. Brown, the emotional taxing performance as Sofia in The Color Purple, and playing Taystee in Orange is the New Black. 

Let’s start with some of the more exciting news: you’re Oscar nominated and have officially been nominated for an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony! How did you feel when you found out about the nomination?
I was over the moon, cloud 5,000. If I could do a backflip into a somersault I would, that’s how I felt. But it was also just so great to hear my husband and my daughter be the ones to tell me. It really meant a lot to me.

How does it feel to represent The Color Purple at the Academy Awards?
I’ve spoken a lot about the pressures of playing Sofia coming under Miss Oprah Winfrey, but I actually feel more pressure being the lone wolf here representing The Color Purple. Especially because in 1985, The Color Purple was able to garner 11 nominations but didn’t win anything. And here we are, however many years later, knowing the impact that this story has had on the world. Now we only have one nomination, and I happen to be the one. I’m very humbled by it all, but I also really would love this win for all of the people involved in the many iterations of The Color Purple.

I was honestly shocked that The Color Purple didn’t receive more nominations throughout the award season. Did you expect it to get more recognition this time around?
I definitely did. I wouldn’t say expect but I was hopeful that we would. Blitz Bazawule, our director, did a phenomenal job. It’s a lot to juggle, sharing a film and having a vision for a film. Adding music, adding choreography and dance numbers and making that all come together so seamlessly, I think he did a phenomenal job. I would have loved that for him. I would have loved it for the music as well. Oh my gosh, I just feel like how could we not celebrate the music of The Color Purple, like what? Obviously my girls Fantasia, Taraji, I would have loved to be able to celebrate this with them as well, but I don’t control those kinds of things.

Another thing is that your cousin, Sterling K. Brown, also got an Oscar nomination for his work in American Fiction. And Niecy Nash is also your cousin? Was there a three a three-way call to celebrate the news?
No, we didn’t three-way call, but we definitely did send each other love. I found out by doing Henry Louis Gates’ Finding Your Roots and so he was telling me, ‘We found out Sterling K. Brown is your cousin on one side of your family, and Niecy on the other side,’ which only makes sense that we have uberly talented people in the family. It was actually an academy event [Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Gala] that we were going to where Miss Oprah was being honored and [I] got to tell them that we were cousins and we all took a picture together.

Is that the picture Niecy posted on her Instagram?
That’s the picture where we all found out together, and then me and Sterling exchanged numbers that day. You got to know your cousin’s info.

You’re Oscar nominated for the role that you idolized as a teen. What would a younger Danielle Brooks say to you now?
I jokingly say [this] but also feel in my spirit, like what Niecy said in her speech at the Emmys, ‘Go on girl with your bad self. You did that.’ That’s how I feel. I’m very proud of my accomplishments, but the seed was planted when I watched that musical when I was 15. Coming from a small town, the possibilities for myself felt limited. So it wasn’t until I saw people that look like me — Felicia P. Fields in particular who played Sofia, this curvy plus size woman, living in all her power — that I said, “Wow, there is a space for me in this industry.” 

So, for me to star in it 10 years later meant the world to me, that being my first Broadway show that I was in. It’s just crazy how the universe works itself out. 

It happened so seamlessly. 
I work so hard and give 100 percent  to every project that I’m in whether that’s on Broadway, or Shakespeare in the Park, or guest spotting on a show as I did with Girls and High Maintenance or being in this major studio film. I’m gonna give 100% because if those women I watched [in] The Color Purple in 2005 didn’t give all of themselves I might not have been so inspired to find my way in. So, I feel like I owe it to whomever is watching me and coming up behind me.

You spent six months auditioning for the The Color Purple film, despite a Tony nomination for your onstage role. Did you feel that you needed to do all that?
No, I did not think I needed to do all that (laughs). But I was going to do all that because I knew I wanted it, and I wasn’t gonna let my ego get in the way of my blessing. So I did what needed to be done, and I did it without complaining. 

Because if I would have let my ego get in the way. I don’t know if I would have gotten this job. I really don’t think I would’ve got the job. 

In what ways were the movie musical and 2015 stage revival emotionally and physically taxing for you? 
When you are doing a musical for that long, you become an athlete, you truly do. You have to have this crazy stamina and discipline. You can’t go out after the show and drink at Glass House [Tavern] and be around a lot of people that are screaming where you’re busting your voice. There’s a discipline about the craft that you garner when you’re on Broadway.

And then you step into doing it in film, and you’re doing a scene like the dinner scene not just a few hours, but over three days. Having to tap into that level of emotion and tap into parts of yourself that you really don’t want to go back to, but you have to be vulnerable and be the vessel for this character to speak through you for other people to receive whatever the message is that they need to receive. So, that came with a lot, and that’s not only the dinner scene, but that’s the jail scene, that’s the white mob scene, that you’re doing the same action over and over and over and over to the point where it really can deplete you. 

I was at the bottom. I was done when it came to the physicality, spiritually, mentally calling on the ancestors, making sure that I’m mentally not bringing Sofia home, physically getting hurt playing scenes, and having to do [physical therapy] and [see a] chiropractor. So, it took a lot out of me. But at the end of the day, I’d do it again.

Do you think the work you’re doing is a form of activism, when we think about roles like Taystee from Orange is the New Black, Sofia in The Color Purple?
It’s very easy to go to a Taystee standpoint because we know the impact that we’re really trying to hone in on the prison system, the injustice that women face being incarcerated, the damage that does for families when we are not rehabilitating people in these situations but just putting them away like their animals. We see [that] firsthand, right? But I also feel like even when I’m over here doing Peacemaker or Minecraft, to me that’s a form of activism too, because it’s showing the world like there’s way more to Black women than just being loud, sassy, boisterous, angry women. 

I think I read you want to be in a rom com. 
I want to do it all, though the action stuff is so great because some people feel like when you’re 200-plus pounds, you can’t move and you’re not flexible, you don’t have a skill set but that’s a lie. It’s really cool to show people, no, I can kick some ass just like John Cena, just like Jason Momoa can. 

Do you feel that the Oscars tends to reward Black stories that begin with struggle, trauma, violence? Do you have a conflict with the movies that are often rewarded at these kinds of award shows?
We got a lot more ground to break. Halle Berry is still the only Black woman to have won for best actress and we’re almost hitting 100 years of the Oscars. We need to reexamine some stuff. Even when I think about Lily Gladstone, I don’t just leave it to Black people. When I think about Lily Gladstone and her fight as an indigenous woman being the only [one], a Michelle Yeoh in the Asian community, we got a lot of strides to make.

All I can do is keep doing the work, man. Keep doing the work and choosing the roles that I feel that are pushing us forward, especially now that I have this ability. Now’s the time to really be specific about the type of storytelling that I want to do in this dark skinned Black, curvy body.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Danielle Brooks knows The Color Purple’s Sofia inside out. She spent a year as the boisterous wife in the Broadway revival in 2015, and boasts that she knows everything from the character’s Zodiac sign to the color socks she wore. A decade before her fiery onstage performance, a 15-year-old Brooks admired Felicia P. Fields as Sofia in its initial run on Broadway, whose defiant demeanor made her vulnerable to racial violence. Despite her lifelong ties to the role, she still had to prove herself for the big budget movie musical. 

“Nobody can say it was handed to me,” says Brooks, who auditioned for six months for the role. “I earned that. I worked for it. I did chemistry reads with Corey [Hawkins] and I put myself on tape singing ‘Hell No!’ and had meetings over an hour with Blitz [Bazawule], our director. I did everything that I was asked to do.” 

The Color Purple, adapted from Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and the Tony-Award winning musical based on it, follows Celie (Fantasia Barrino), an abused, Black woman and housewife to Mister (Colman Domingo) who finds her value in the company of women like Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson) and Sofia, a high-spirited wife to Harpo (Corey Hawkins) whose light dims after becoming a maid for a white political family.  

After a call from the original Sofia — Oprah Winfrey portrayed her in the 1985 film adaptation of the 1982 book — and reprising the unrestrained character onscreen, the 34-year-old actress is the lone Oscar nominee for The Color Purple (a stark contrast from the previous film’s 11 nominations). This nomination helped the actress achieve her EGOT nominee status — snagging her first Grammy win in 2016 for The Color Purple’s musical theater album. 

“I’m still in disbelief,” Brooks says. “Not disbelief, I do believe. I do believe but for this moment to be here now is crazy, and hopefully one day we’ll actually get to lock all of them in.”

The Juilliard-trained actress starred as the booksmart Taystee in Orange is the New Black, the gospel singer and activist Mahalia Jackson in Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia, a black ops team member in the The Suicide Squad spinoff Peacemaker and as Dawn in the upcoming Minecraft, which she described as “Sofia fighting, but [in] a different way.” 

Rolling Stone talked with Brooks about exchanging digits with newly discovered cousin Sterling K. Brown, the emotional taxing performance as Sofia in The Color Purple, and playing Taystee in Orange is the New Black. 

Let’s start with some of the more exciting news: you’re Oscar nominated and have officially been nominated for an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony! How did you feel when you found out about the nomination?
I was over the moon, cloud 5,000. If I could do a backflip into a somersault I would, that’s how I felt. But it was also just so great to hear my husband and my daughter be the ones to tell me. It really meant a lot to me.

How does it feel to represent The Color Purple at the Academy Awards?
I’ve spoken a lot about the pressures of playing Sofia coming under Miss Oprah Winfrey, but I actually feel more pressure being the lone wolf here representing The Color Purple. Especially because in 1985, The Color Purple was able to garner 11 nominations but didn’t win anything. And here we are, however many years later, knowing the impact that this story has had on the world. Now we only have one nomination, and I happen to be the one. I’m very humbled by it all, but I also really would love this win for all of the people involved in the many iterations of The Color Purple.

I was honestly shocked that The Color Purple didn’t receive more nominations throughout the award season. Did you expect it to get more recognition this time around?
I definitely did. I wouldn’t say expect but I was hopeful that we would. Blitz Bazawule, our director, did a phenomenal job. It’s a lot to juggle, sharing a film and having a vision for a film. Adding music, adding choreography and dance numbers and making that all come together so seamlessly, I think he did a phenomenal job. I would have loved that for him. I would have loved it for the music as well. Oh my gosh, I just feel like how could we not celebrate the music of The Color Purple, like what? Obviously my girls Fantasia, Taraji, I would have loved to be able to celebrate this with them as well, but I don’t control those kinds of things.

Another thing is that your cousin, Sterling K. Brown, also got an Oscar nomination for his work in American Fiction. And Niecy Nash is also your cousin? Was there a three a three-way call to celebrate the news?
No, we didn’t three-way call, but we definitely did send each other love. I found out by doing Henry Louis Gates’ Finding Your Roots and so he was telling me, ‘We found out Sterling K. Brown is your cousin on one side of your family, and Niecy on the other side,’ which only makes sense that we have uberly talented people in the family. It was actually an academy event [Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Gala] that we were going to where Miss Oprah was being honored and [I] got to tell them that we were cousins and we all took a picture together.

Is that the picture Niecy posted on her Instagram?
That’s the picture where we all found out together, and then me and Sterling exchanged numbers that day. You got to know your cousin’s info.

You’re Oscar nominated for the role that you idolized as a teen. What would a younger Danielle Brooks say to you now?
I jokingly say [this] but also feel in my spirit, like what Niecy said in her speech at the Emmys, ‘Go on girl with your bad self. You did that.’ That’s how I feel. I’m very proud of my accomplishments, but the seed was planted when I watched that musical when I was 15. Coming from a small town, the possibilities for myself felt limited. So it wasn’t until I saw people that look like me — Felicia P. Fields in particular who played Sofia, this curvy plus size woman, living in all her power — that I said, “Wow, there is a space for me in this industry.” 

So, for me to star in it 10 years later meant the world to me, that being my first Broadway show that I was in. It’s just crazy how the universe works itself out. 

It happened so seamlessly. 
I work so hard and give 100 percent  to every project that I’m in whether that’s on Broadway, or Shakespeare in the Park, or guest spotting on a show as I did with Girls and High Maintenance or being in this major studio film. I’m gonna give 100% because if those women I watched [in] The Color Purple in 2005 didn’t give all of themselves I might not have been so inspired to find my way in. So, I feel like I owe it to whomever is watching me and coming up behind me.

You spent six months auditioning for the The Color Purple film, despite a Tony nomination for your onstage role. Did you feel that you needed to do all that?
No, I did not think I needed to do all that (laughs). But I was going to do all that because I knew I wanted it, and I wasn’t gonna let my ego get in the way of my blessing. So I did what needed to be done, and I did it without complaining. 

Because if I would have let my ego get in the way. I don’t know if I would have gotten this job. I really don’t think I would’ve got the job. 

In what ways were the movie musical and 2015 stage revival emotionally and physically taxing for you? 
When you are doing a musical for that long, you become an athlete, you truly do. You have to have this crazy stamina and discipline. You can’t go out after the show and drink at Glass House [Tavern] and be around a lot of people that are screaming where you’re busting your voice. There’s a discipline about the craft that you garner when you’re on Broadway.

And then you step into doing it in film, and you’re doing a scene like the dinner scene not just a few hours, but over three days. Having to tap into that level of emotion and tap into parts of yourself that you really don’t want to go back to, but you have to be vulnerable and be the vessel for this character to speak through you for other people to receive whatever the message is that they need to receive. So, that came with a lot, and that’s not only the dinner scene, but that’s the jail scene, that’s the white mob scene, that you’re doing the same action over and over and over and over to the point where it really can deplete you. 

I was at the bottom. I was done when it came to the physicality, spiritually, mentally calling on the ancestors, making sure that I’m mentally not bringing Sofia home, physically getting hurt playing scenes, and having to do [physical therapy] and [see a] chiropractor. So, it took a lot out of me. But at the end of the day, I’d do it again.

Do you think the work you’re doing is a form of activism, when we think about roles like Taystee from Orange is the New Black, Sofia in The Color Purple?
It’s very easy to go to a Taystee standpoint because we know the impact that we’re really trying to hone in on the prison system, the injustice that women face being incarcerated, the damage that does for families when we are not rehabilitating people in these situations but just putting them away like their animals. We see [that] firsthand, right? But I also feel like even when I’m over here doing Peacemaker or Minecraft, to me that’s a form of activism too, because it’s showing the world like there’s way more to Black women than just being loud, sassy, boisterous, angry women. 

I think I read you want to be in a rom com. 
I want to do it all, though the action stuff is so great because some people feel like when you’re 200-plus pounds, you can’t move and you’re not flexible, you don’t have a skill set but that’s a lie. It’s really cool to show people, no, I can kick some ass just like John Cena, just like Jason Momoa can. 

Do you feel that the Oscars tends to reward Black stories that begin with struggle, trauma, violence? Do you have a conflict with the movies that are often rewarded at these kinds of award shows?
We got a lot more ground to break. Halle Berry is still the only Black woman to have won for best actress and we’re almost hitting 100 years of the Oscars. We need to reexamine some stuff. Even when I think about Lily Gladstone, I don’t just leave it to Black people. When I think about Lily Gladstone and her fight as an indigenous woman being the only [one], a Michelle Yeoh in the Asian community, we got a lot of strides to make.

All I can do is keep doing the work, man. Keep doing the work and choosing the roles that I feel that are pushing us forward, especially now that I have this ability. Now’s the time to really be specific about the type of storytelling that I want to do in this dark skinned Black, curvy body.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.