NEW YORK, NY.- Was it an interview or an unburdening? As she wiped away tears, Danielle Brooks confessed she couldn’t tell the difference.
“New York Times therapy session, you got me going!” she said, chuckling as she cried.
It was Valentine’s Day, and we had met on a video call to discuss the 34-year-old actress’s first Oscar nomination, for playing the indomitable Sofia in Blitz Bazawule’s big-screen musical, “The Color Purple.” Although she had been too busy filming the “Minecraft” movie in New Zealand to fly to that week’s Oscar nominees luncheon in Beverly Hills, Brooks said she had spent the past few days wrapping her head around the kind of company she now kept.
“It’s been really emotional,” the supporting actress contender said. “There are five African Americans nominated in actor categories this year and only two Black women, and to be one of them means a lot to me.”
This is also the culmination of a long arc that Brooks has experienced alongside “The Color Purple”: As a teenager, she was so blown away by the Broadway musical that it inspired her to pursue acting; later, after shooting to fame as Taystee on the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” she won the role of Sofia in the 2015 stage revival of “The Color Purple.”
Tony-nominated for that turn, Brooks nevertheless auditioned for six months to play the same part in Bazawule’s film. She’s proud of everything she was able to bring to her robust performance, which finds Sofia singing the anthemic “Hell No!” before going through the emotional wringer, imprisoned for refusing to be a white woman’s maid.
“It really did deplete me — physically, mentally, spiritually,” Brooks said. “I was drained at the end of doing this part.”
Although she is “beyond grateful" for her Oscar nomination and nods from the Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA, Brooks was candid about how much work goes into forging a screen career like hers. It’s hard not to take some setbacks personally, she said, noting that though she participated in the 2022 Broadway revival of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” the forthcoming movie version recast her role with Danielle Deadwyler.
How do you balance those losses with the wins afforded by an awards-season run? Brooks said she was still trying to figure out the healthiest path forward.
“It can really get to you if you’re not in a good head space,” she admitted. “Without all the accolades, do you know your value and worth? That’s always the question that keeps rolling in your head, and that’s what is hard about this industry: What is the legacy that I’m leaving without a dollar attached, without an award attached, without a number of eyeballs on a project? What will I be remembered for?”
Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.
Q: You were missed at the Oscar nominees luncheon.
A: I really wish I could have had that moment with my mom, but I guess there’s two parts of it. One is the belief that this will not be my last time having a seat at the table. This unforgettable celebratory moment will happen again. The other is, I don’t know why when I entered into this race that I thought everything would fall into place, because that’s not how life works. It’s not always going to go your way, and how are you going to navigate that with all the grace you can?
Q: A lot of wonderful things are happening right now, but that doesn’t make it easy.
A: I think it actually makes it more complicated because we all want the thing. If any actors tell you that they don’t want to win, they’re lying to you. We all want it, we’re all competitive, that’s the industry. But we also love the craft, we love storytelling. So it gets really cloudy in these awards seasons because you don’t want to lose sight of why you got into it.
At the same time, you do have this sense of, if I could just make it across the finish line, maybe there’s more I can do. Maybe there’s more access, more opportunity for people to hear what changes need to happen in Hollywood and what stories deserve to be told. But then you take a step back and realize, well, that’s what I’m doing now. It might not be as expansive as some of the people that have had the opportunity of accepting an Oscar, but I’m still doing all of the things I wanted to do and I still have my voice.
Q: Awards season can be complicated in the same way having a high-profile screen career is complicated. It isn’t just about the character you play, it’s about who you are, too.
A: It’s tough, bro. Especially because the industry can look at you like a business: You are Danielle Brooks, the moneymaker. How much value do you hold? What gets lost is we’re people, too — we have goals and aspirations and families. There’s a lot of sacrifice that goes into being Danielle Brooks, and I wish that this industry could remember that it’s not always about the money.
Q: What has playing Sofia given to you over the years?
A: So much. When I played her on Broadway, she taught me about my power, and when I played her in the movie, she taught me how to own my power. During this season, she’s teaching me how to fight for myself and not settle. I’ve had so many lessons from other characters, but I think Sofia’s always going to keep teaching me stuff.
Q: Take me into your pre-Sofia journey of trying to figure out your power. What were things like in your career then?
A: I was hitting the audition pavement hard and desperate before “Orange Is the New Black.” I remember going to a 1 p.m. audition for a Broadway show, and in my head, I was like, “I don’t want the director to be hungry during my audition and thinking, OK, when’s lunch?” So I brought in a veggie plate. Totally didn’t get a callback.
Q: But at least he got a veggie plate!
A: I was just throwing everything at the wall. When I was at Juilliard, you weren’t being taught how to audition, so I had to learn as I went and made a lot of mistakes. But the universe works how it’s supposed to, and I needed all of the no’s so that I could figure it out.
Before my “Color Purple” audition on Broadway, I was auditioning for “Pippin” and kept getting callback after callback. Finally, they let me go and I called my agents and was like, “Please, please just give me one more. Just fight for me to get in the room again.” They won that battle and told me it was going to be a director session, so I’m thinking it’s just going to be me and the director working on this material together. It was not. It was a room full of suits, about 20 people, and they were like: “Perform.”
Everything went out the window. I couldn’t remember the notes to the song. I was so terrified and nervous that I actually walked out. I said, “I’m sorry, but this is not the best of me. I would hate for you all to think this is how I am as an artist.” As soon as that happened, I cried my little eyeballs out, I was just devastated, but I went straight into singing and dance lessons so that when I came into my next audition, I would be ready. And then my next Broadway audition was with that same casting director and it was for “Color Purple.”
Q: A good lesson for a working actor.
A: Even now, being more seasoned, sometimes you think things are going to go in your favor and they don’t. I did not get the “Piano Lesson” movie and I was disheartened because I put in the time onstage and nobody came to me. I didn’t understand why. Hearing a no from people that I truly respect, it made me second-guess myself. But that’s when I had to do some really deep work and understand, “You have to know your worth, Danielle.”
The reason I share that is because sometimes your rejection has to do with other people finding their path, and I think that’s what that moment truly was. God was saying, “I need to move you out of the way so I can position Danielle Deadwyler for whatever I have for her.” And I can receive that because now here I am, a few months later, Oscar-nominated. So there’s still wins, you know what I mean?
Q: Do you remember the last day you played Sofia on Broadway? Did you ever think you’d get another crack at the character?
A: I thought that was the end, so that was definitely an emotional day. I had played her for a year of my life, eight shows a week, and learned so much about myself and had these magical experiences with the audience that I didn’t want to let go of. Then I kept hearing that they were going to make a movie, so I just kept one eye open, hoping I could maybe scoot in there.
But you know what was tough? When I sang “Hell No!” for the last time on set in this version. When Blitz Bazawule called cut and said that’s a wrap on “Hell No!” that’s when I got emotional. When else will I get a chance to sing this song? I’ve done it on Broadway, I’ve done it in the movie. I think this truly is the end of this moment.
Q: Onstage, Sofia goes through some tough times, but her arc starts and ends in a good place. On film, you might have to stay in her heavy moments for days while shooting, which I’d imagine is a whole different experience.
A: When we did the white mob scene, when Sofia tells Miss Millie she’s not going to work for her, I did four or five hours of this fight where I’m being attacked, and your body does not know that you’re acting. My back went out, I had to go through physical therapy, I had to get a chiropractor to adjust me several times to continue to shoot. You come in the next day, having an injury, and have to wear this 15-pound pregnancy belly that’s hurting your back. Then you go into the prison scene and you’re having to live in this emotional place for hours.
Q: The dinner scene with the rest of your cast, including Corey Hawkins and Fantasia Barrino-Taylor, gets a huge reaction from the audience. But I heard filming that wasn’t easy, either.
A: Nobody was at the table but me and Corey because we had a COVID outbreak. So I’m pretty much acting by myself, giving everything I have, and then [the next day] they’re like, “We need you to come back and shoot again now that we have half the sick cast.” OK, now I’ve got to go find that again, give it everything I have, think that I’ve done my job after calling on the ancestors and draining everything for two days. Then they ask you to come back in three days and do it again, because now we have all of the cast.
At that point, I told the director, “I’m not doing it because I know you have it on camera and can cut me into it.” And they’re like, “Well, we just need to feel Fantasia’s shoulder in the shot.” And I’m like, This is when you have to tap into things that are bigger than yourself, because this is a part of what you want to leave behind as your legacy, right? It’s going to be hard to find it again, but you can do it. So I did what needed to be done.
Q: Whose responses to “The Color Purple” have been the most meaningful to you?
A: I remember being in the car with my mom and I had played her the “Hell No!” remix with Megan Thee Stallion. We were holding hands and I was like, “This is a bop, ain’t it, Ma?” And she took my hand and she started to cry and said, “Danielle, I’m so proud of you.” And I said, “Ma, I’m proud of you,” because of the sacrifices she made for me to be able to live my dream.
So getting to share that, having my daughter see my face onscreen when I took her to see “The Little Mermaid” and they had the “Color Purple" trailer and she’s like, “That’s my mommy!” Having my husband call me at 3:30 in the morning to say, “Danielle, you’re Oscar-nominated.” That’s what I’m most proud of.
Q: With the Oscars in a few weeks, at least you have a little bit more of your journey left before you have to fully say goodbye to this “Color Purple” experience.
A: I think that’s why I’m emotional, because a part of me feels like I’m mourning. It’s truly coming to an end of this chapter with Sofia, but it’s just given me so much. It’s the first show I ever saw. If you get to star in the show that gave you so much hope that you could one day do it, that’s incredible, yo! So it’s so much deeper to me than just, “Oh, I just played Sofia.” This character and this story is why I’m actually doing the thing.
Q: I know there’s a lot of uncertainty in an acting career, but if you have a full-circle journey like the one you’ve had with this material, you’ve got to think you’re on the right path.
A: It’s wild! That’s why I encourage people to trust where the universe is taking you and trust that when things don’t go your way, you’re getting set up for wherever you’re supposed to go. That’s what I try to take from those moments that seem like rejection: If you don’t go through them and do the work you have to do internally, you won’t get to the next step. If I didn’t mess up that “Pippin” audition and go straight into singing and dancing classes, I probably wouldn’t have got “The Color Purple” because I wouldn’t have been ready. That’s the lesson I’m learning along the way.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
