Oprah and the stars of The Color Purple gathered together for a screening of the musical Wednesday night, hours after scoring a coveted SAG best ensemble nomination — and also used the occasion to put aside any notion of rumored tension between them, even if subtly.
Kerry Washington moderated a Q&A with Oprah — who produced the Warner Bros. movie alongside Steven Spielberg — and actresses Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Barrino after the credits rolled at the DGA Theater in West Hollywood.
Henson had nothing but praise for Oprah, saying she not only “knows how to produce,” but that she brought “the pride that she has in this project” to set and it “poured into us.”
“I mean, she called and was like, ‘If there’s anything I can help you with, let me know,’” Henson recalled Oprah telling her. “And I said, ‘Well since you asked (Laughs).’ But this is the job of the producer, right? Some producers don’t even come to set, y’all. This is a blessing that she came. … But my point is that that’s the job of the producer, a good producer. And when I told her, she said, ‘Say less.’ The next day everything was fixed, and then she was on set for all the important and heavy lifts. She was there holding our hands with the whole thing, loving on us.”
Henson continued to show her appreciation for Oprah, adding, “Thank you for pouring so much into us and believing in us and supporting us.”
Brooks noted that they finished the project as a family: “We roll for each other. We complained with each other. We rocked with each other. We were in trenches doing blood work with each other.”
As for why Oprah felt like it was time for a new adaptation of the film, decades after the 1985 movie, she said she realized that “we had reached a point in our culture once again where women’s voices needed to be heard.”
“I’m guided by something bigger than myself,” she explained. “And I think one of the reasons why the manifestation of this particular cast and the church that we have everywhere we go and the unity that we all feel with each other is because the timing was all right.”
The screening and panel came after a cascading set of events that ensued in recent weeks when Henson began sharing her poor experiences with things like pay equity or on-set accommodations during rehearsals for The Color Purple, as well as other projects during the course of her career. Her comments ignited a firestorm on social media, and sparked speculation that Oprah somehow didn’t do enough as a producer.
The conversation began overshadowing the film’s awards ambitions. At the Golden Globes ceremony last weekend, where Barrino and Brooks were both nominated for top acting honors, they and Oprah found themselves instead being peppered on the red carpet with questions about the so-called dust-up, versus the movie itself. (Henson, who wasn’t nominated, wasn’t in attendance).
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight on the same day as the Globes, Oprah said the speculation was simply not correct. “People are saying that I was not supporting Taraji. Taraji will tell you herself that I’ve been the greatest champion of this film. Championing not only the behind-the-scenes projection but also everything that everybody needed,” Winfrey said. “I’m not in charge of the budget because that’s Warner Bros., you know. That’s the way the studio system works.”
She continued: “We as producers, everybody gets their salary … negotiated by your team. And so, whenever I heard there was an issue or there was a problem — there was a problem with cars or the problem with their food — I would step in and do whatever I could to make it right. And I believe that she would even vouch for that and say that is true.”
In an interview published Jan. 5 in The New York Times, Henson — who plays Shug Avery in the Blitz Bazawule-directed movie musical — said that she had “fought” and secured a number of things for herself and her fellow Black female co-stars during filming.
“They gave us rental cars, and I was like, ‘I can’t drive myself to set in Atlanta.’ This is insurance liability, it’s dangerous. Now they robbing people. What do I look like, taking myself to work by myself in a rental car?” she said. “So I was like, ‘Can I get a driver or security to take me?’ I’m not asking for the moon. They’re like, ‘Well, if we do it for you, we got to do it for everybody.’”
And Henson previously told The Hollywood Reporter in a cover story for the Golden Globe-nominated Color Purple that she’s “been fighting tooth and nail every project to get that same freaking [fee] quote. And it’s a slap in the face when people go, ‘Oh girl, you work all the time. You always working.’ Well, goddammit, I have to. It’s not because I wish I could do two movies a year and that’s that. I have to work because the math ain’t mathing. And I have bills.”
Separately, Brooks revealed during a THR video interview with the cast and Oprah that she was surprised when there was no food or private dressing rooms when showing up for a rehearsal in Atlanta.
Oprah has since explained that when she heard Henson was upset, she called then-Warner Bros. movie studio chief Toby Emmerich, and that all concerns were addressed.
At the screening Wednesday, Oprah and the stars also didn’t mention any of the previously mentioned complaints.
In the SAG race, The Color Purple is competing with American Fiction, Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon and Oppenheimer. The latter three were universally expected to be nominated; American Fiction and The Color Purple were not. Brooks also earned a nod for best supporting actress.
The SAG recognition is a huge boost for the movie — which has struggled at the box office after a strong start on Christmas day — on the road to the Academy Awards.
