Fantasia Barrino (‘The Color Purple’) on why she had to play Celie again: ‘I never gave up and I never gave in’
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“I can’t believe it,” says Fantasia Barrino when responding to her recent Golden Globe nomination for Best Comedy/Musical Actress. She stars as Celie in Blitz Bazawule‘s musical film adaptation of “The Color Purple.” “When I left Broadway, I had done interviews and I said I would never go back. I meant it. I was so young. My life was all over the place. I felt like I was carrying my cross and Celie’s cross. That was heavy.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
Barrino credits Bazawule for luring her back to the character she had distanced herself from. “He said, ‘I’m gonna give Celie an imagination,'” she recalls. “He said, ‘Fantasia, my mother is Celie.’ Every person that goes through anything traumatic, they have an imagination. We don’t just wallow in that. I told him then, ‘I’m in.’ I knew that wasn’t going to be easy. I knew that was going to be taxing. I’m going back to some stuff that I had left behind.”
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The Grammy-winning singer recalls her own difficult past, including troubled relationships and financial hardship. “I had to play Celie,” she states. “We relate. I never gave up and I never gave in. I need to show people this is how I got here. Celie is every woman, every man. Black, white, young and old. Someone can relate to Celie or Sophia, Shug Avery, Mister or Harpo. We all can watch this movie and relate. And the thing I love about this movie is it’s not just trauma, trauma, trauma. It’s trauma, but there’s so much joy in it. There’s so much laughter in it. That’s how we get through every day.”
“The Color Purple” is a decades-spanning tale of love and resilience and of one woman’s journey to independence. Celie faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood. The Warner Bros. film opens nationwide on December 25.
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