Oprah Winfrey Gives Inside Look at CinemaCon Appearance with ‘The Color Purple’ Cast

The musical The Color Purple movie is being released later this year and the cast just made an appearance at CinemaCon!

Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, and Taraji P. Henson joined producer Oprah Winfrey and director Blitz Bazawule on stage at the event on Tuesday afternoon (April 25) at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Oprah took to her Instagram account to give an inside look at the event, where she interviewed the cast in front of movie theater owners.

Fantasia, who played Celie in the first Broadway production, talked about her experience with the role.

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“Celie’s story is very close to me,” she said. “My life was so much like Celie’s at the time. So me stepping into her shoes and doing that—night after night after night—was heavy. When Scott [Sanders, a producer] called me back to do it, I said, ‘Oh, no, I can’t. Life has changed—I’m good, I’m happy, I’m married.’ He said, ‘Only you can do it.’ I had to pull up some things that I had walked away from. But I felt safe doing it because everybody surrounded me. It means a lot to me because I’ve come so far—I am Celie.”

The movie hits theaters December 25, 2023.

Watch Oprah‘s behind-the-scenes look below.