Oprah Winfrey is opening up about some of the struggles she encountered while making the second film adaptation of The Color Purple.
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During a recent interview for The Hollywood Reporter, Winfrey–who returns as a producer for the film alongside Steven Spielberg–said that there was pressure to land a big-name star for the movie in order to ensure a hit.
“To be completely honest about it, if you were doing this film for $30 or $40â¯million, the interest in the cast would be very different,” Winfrey said. “Once the film moved to $90 to $100â¯million, then everybody wants us to bring Beyoncé. ‘Can you get Beyoncé or can you get Rihanna?’”
“So we’re sitting in a room saying, ‘Listen, we love Beyoncé. We love Rihanna, but there are other actors who can do this job,’” the former talk show host recalled.
She even referenced Beyoncé’s tour this year, adding, “I do remember conversations about, ‘Y’all, Beyoncé is going to be busy this year.’ It wasn’t even a negotiation, because you’re not getting Beyoncé.”
Despite having such iconic source material, Winfrey and those she collaborated with on the film still had to fight for more resources and for the cast that director Blitz Bazawule envisioned. Bazawule recently collaborated with Bey as co-director of her 2020 Lion King visual companion, Black Is King.
Fantasia Barrino, who plays Celie (a role she also played in the Broadway adaptation), said that the cast wanted to “overdeliver” in support of their director.
“It’s an all-Black cast and it’s a movie that is really deep,” she said. “So for Blitz, we all would go hard even when we were tired, when we were upset.”
The Color Purple is set to hit theaters on Christmas day.
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