Danielle Brooks still follows Oprah Winfrey’s advice: “Stand on your business.” She discussed the mentorship at the September 28 Broadway opening of School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, in an interview published October 3.
The two women have an unusual connection: they played the same character in different screen adaptations of The Color Purple. Winfrey was Sofia in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film. Brooks took that role in the later musical. Their professional relationship also includes Winfrey’s work behind the scenes, rather than a shared acting scene in the 2023 movie.
How Sofia became Brooks’s Broadway debut
Brooks first played Sofia in the 2015 Broadway revival, making her Broadway debut. The production opened on December 10 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Cynthia Erivo played Celie, and Winfrey was among its producers. That puts their connection well before the 2023 film: Brooks already had experience performing Sofia for a theater audience.
Brooks’s credited engagement ran from the first preview on November 10, 2015, through November 13, 2016. The production itself continued until January 8, 2017. Those are different dates, so the show’s full run should not be mistaken for the length of Brooks’s own time in the cast.
Her performance brought a 2016 Tony nomination for Featured Actress in a Musical. She did not win that category; Renée Elise Goldsberry won for Hamilton. The nomination nevertheless came from Brooks’s first Broadway production, before she returned to Sofia for the screen adaptation. It is a separate credit from her later Oscar nomination, not an award for the film.
The same role, a different cast
The 2023 movie is a film musical directed by Blitz Bazawule, with a screenplay by Marcus Gardley. It draws on Alice Walker’s novel and the stage musical. Winfrey and Spielberg are credited producers, alongside Scott Sanders and Quincy Jones. Spielberg directed the earlier film, but Bazawule directed this one; the two movies are not the same production.
Fantasia Barrino plays Celie in the 2023 film, while Taraji P. Henson plays Shug Avery. Brooks is Sofia, and Colman Domingo plays Mister. Erivo’s Celie belongs to the Broadway revival, not this film’s acting cast. For Brooks, the new adaptation meant returning to a familiar character with a different group of scene partners around her.
The story follows Celie through hardship and the relationships that help her find support. Shug and Sofia are part of that circle of women, rather than different names for Celie. The musical gives the characters song and dance as well as spoken scenes. The cast’s work on that version is explored in the official making-of video accompanying this article.
The Color Purple: scenes from the 2023 musical
3 screenshotsTwo Sofia performances recognized by the Academy
Brooks received a Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for The Color Purple at the 2024 ceremony, which honored films released in 2023. Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the category for The Holdovers. Brooks’s nomination was for her screen performance as Sofia, not the earlier Broadway run. The Tony and Oscar recognition therefore mark two separate productions of the character.
Winfrey had also been nominated for Supporting Actress for playing Sofia, at the 1986 Oscars honoring the 1985 film. Her nomination and Brooks’s came almost four decades apart. The shared character makes the connection specific: Winfrey is both an earlier Sofia and a producer of the later adaptation, not an actor reprising Sofia alongside Brooks in the musical.
Brooks’s screen work also includes Leota Adebayo in Peacemaker. That television role is separate from Sofia, with a different character and setting in the DC series. Her casting there was announced with the first season’s ensemble. The two credits give viewers different places to follow her work without treating every role as an extension of The Color Purple.
What American Comfort would bring them back for
Their next announced collaboration is American Comfort, a comedy in development at Apple TV. Brooks is attached to star as Melba and executive produce. The project is inspired by Harlem restaurateur Melba Wilson and her soul-food restaurant, Melba’s. Kenya Barris is writing and executive producing; Winfrey is an executive producer through Harpo, and Wilson is also an executive producer.
That is a different arrangement from The Color Purple. Brooks would lead the comedy, while Winfrey’s announced contribution is as a producer. Development is not a premiere announcement: there is no confirmed release date or complete supporting cast in the project’s announcement. American Comfort remains a working title, and it should not be presented as a show already available to stream.
Where to watch the 2023 film
The 2023 musical is currently available in the United States on HBO Max. Its film page and cast should be kept separate from the 1985 adaptation and the developing Apple comedy. Viewers looking for Brooks’s Sofia can use the 2023 film’s hub below, with its confirmed platform and cast links.
