Director Blitz Bazawule is wowing audiences with his musical adaptation of The Color Purple — which includes one major surprise cameo.
Warning: Spoilers below for The Color Purple.
The movie, which hit theaters on Monday, December 25, is based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer-prize-winning novel of the same name. Taking inspiration from the book — as well as the Broadway play and Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film adaption — the 2023 film once again follows Celie (Fantasia Barrino) as she overcomes various hardships in her life while living in early 20th-century Georgia.
While Barrino, 39 — who portrayed the character on Broadway from 2007 to 2008 — stars in the latest adaptation, Whoopi Goldberg previously scored her first Oscar nomination for her performance as Celie in Spielberg’s version. Goldberg’s iconic portrayal was something Bazawule knew he wanted to honor.
While speaking with the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, December 26, Bazawule shared that he initially considered bringing Goldberg, 68, back as Celie’s mother, but the choice felt “too on the nose.” He instead cast her as a midwife who helps Phylicia Pearl Mouse’s young Celie deliver a baby at the beginning of the film.
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“Symbolically, that felt like the perfect part, because she’s the one to not only encourage her during the birth, but it’s like she herself gave birth to the role and now we see her passing it down,” screenwriter Marcus Gardley told the outlet. “It’s one of the most beautiful scenes because you see [Goldberg] looking upon [Mpasi] with pride and telling her, ‘You can do it.’”
Bazawule, meanwhile, gushed over Goldberg’s warm presence on set. “We had to stop and laugh because of everything [Whoopi] did, and you forget that she comes from stand-up [comedy],” he said. “But more than anything, I just remember how caring and loving she was to Phylicia.”
He added that Goldberg’s role in the movie was “symbolic not only because of what Whoopi represents in the canon of The Color Purple,” but what she represents overall. “The juggernaut that she is,” he explained. “And the doors she kicked open.”
The Color Purple initially hit the stage in 2005, earning eleven Tony nominations in June 2006. Barrino joined as Celie in 2007 until the show’s doors closed the following year. In 2015, the musical opened with a new cast, earning two Tony Awards, including one for Best Revival of a Musical.
While Barrino agreed to reprise the role for the 2023 film, she was initially hesitant to revisit Celie as a character.
“What I felt and carried stepping into her shoes and playing her role, I wasn’t ready to go back to that,” she told Entertainment Weekly earlier this month. However, it was Bazawule’s fresh perspective on the story that eventually drew her in. When he told Barrino, “I’m giving her an imagination so that the people will be able to see certain things,” her mind was changed.
“I said, ‘Well, you got me. You got me. I got to do it one more time,’” Barrino recalled. “What Blitz is coming with with this Color Purple, it’s necessary for this generation.”
In the book, Celie writes letters to God detailing the traumatic events of her past from an abusive stepfather and husband. The 2023 theatrical feature uses magical realism during songs to show the audience what Celie is thinking.
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“Incorporating magical realism in this version of the story gives the audience a chance to go inside of Celie’s imagination,” producer Scott Sanders told Vanity Fair in February 2022. “In the early stages of Celie’s story, she is meek and small and in many ways passive. So we don’t really understand what’s going on inside that head of hers. We know there’s a lot going on, but we don’t know necessarily what it is.”
The Color Purple is now playing in theaters.