Fantasia Barrino is thankful to be starring in 2023’s The Color Purple after overcoming devastating personal obstacles in the past.
“For me, losing everything twice, having to fight to get back here, it feels good,” the former American Idol winner, who is reprising her role after previously starring as Celie in The Color Purple on Broadway, told E! News in an interview published on Wednesday, December 6.
In 2008, financial problems led to the foreclosure of Barrino’s home. Two years later, she attempted suicide. Now, her role as Celie in the 2023 film is generating Oscar buzz, and Barrino, 39, is extremely grateful.
“That’s why I’m going to enjoy it because my story has always been out there. I’ve never been afraid to share it,” she continued. “I feel that when you go through tests, that’s your testimony. How else do you help somebody else?”
Barrino has been very open about her personal problems in the past. Her rise from growing up in poverty in North Carolina to music stardom was documented in her 2006 memoir-turned-Lifetime movie, Life Is Not a Fairy Tale: The Fantasia Barrino Story.
After overcoming illiteracy, sexual abuse and more, Barrino was inspired to work alongside women she admires including Taraji P. Henson, Halle Bailey, H.E.R. and Danielle Brooks, the latter of whom also appeared in the 2015 Broadway revival.
“We go through things, you fall, you get back up,” Barrino shared. “So, for me to be in this room with so many amazing women like Danielle, I’m looking at these women who have a story, who are mothers, who are wives, who’ve fallen and gotten back up, they’re fighting. I want to enjoy this and know that I worked hard to get here.”
Barrino performed in The Color Purple musical on Broadway from 2007 to 2008. Based on the 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker, the original 1985 film was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Whoopi Goldberg in the role of Celie. The character is a teenager in rural Hartwell, Georgia who had two children born of rape by her abusive father.
For Barrino, the story of redemption is what she hopes will be uplifting for the audience.
“I’m thinking the best reward is watching these women and men leave the theater watching the movie and saying they’re healed and they’re whole,” she noted. “And they can let go of things.”
After starring in the Broadway production, Barrino initially rejected reprising the emotionally draining role. However, after director Blitz Bazawule added a new dimension of hope to Celie’s character, he convinced Barrino to change her mind.
“‘I’m giving her an imagination so that the people will be able to see certain things,’” Barrino recalled Bazawule telling her during a November interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I said, ‘Well, you got me. You got me. I got to do it one more time.’What Blitz is coming with this Color Purple, it’s necessary for this generation.”
