*Danielle Brooks says filming the violent arrest scene in “The Color Purple” movie musical “really took a toll” on her physical well-being.
“Because I ended up having to do that scene over the course of two days for multiple hours a day, and it pulled my back out,” the 34-year-old actress explained in an interview with IndieWire.
“Swinging back and forth trying to get the mob off of me. Of course, we have an incredible stage combat leader [stunt coordinator Mark Hicks] and his crew were fabulous, but doing it over and over, that really took me out, where I had to do physical therapy and go to the chiropractor for a few weeks to recover while still having to work,” Brooks added.
The new project reunites Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Quincy Jones as executive producers (from the original 1985 film) on director Blitz Bazawule’s new feature. Variety reports that the Warner Bros. movie musical is an adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway musical by Marsha Norman, Brenda Lee, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker.
We reported earlier that Spielberg’s 1985 film, which is not a musical, reportedly grossed $142 million against a budget of $15 million. The beloved drama feature has a 73% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics and 94% from audiences.
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Bazawule’s new musical adaptation of “The Color Purple” has a Certified Fresh 87% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The film’s 95% audience score surpasses Spielberg’s adaptation starring Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, a Black Southern woman who struggles to find her identity amid decades of abuse in the early 1900s.
Brooks, who plays Sophia in the new version, explained to IndieWire how her character’s brutal arrest scene in the movie compares to her performance in “The Color Purple” stage production.
“So when we did the mob scene on Broadway, you don’t even see it. You just see me come down center stage and fall to my knees, and then you’ll see I lift my head up and now I’ve transformed into a new version, a downtrodden, spirit-stolen Sofia, which I can sustain for a year. But it’s much different doing [it for real], and having 10 to 15 guys surrounding you and you wanting to put everything in it because you want it to make sense from every angle, to not feel like you phoned it in. … I pride myself on being a physical actor. That’s where I live. I love finding how I can use all of my body for the character. I just want to use everything that I can.”
Brooks stars in “The Color Purple” movie musical with Fantasia Barrino as Celie, Taraji P. Henson as Shug Avery, and Colman Domingo as Mister. Watch the trailer below.
READ MORE: Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks Tapped to Star in ‘The Color Purple’ Movie Musical
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