00:00 What attracted you to this project?
00:03 I didn't want to do it.
00:05 I didn't understand why we were doing
00:08 a remake of something so incredibly classic,
00:10 like we don't need to touch it.
00:12 But we did need to touch it, because you
00:14 know why, it's our story.
00:15 It's a black-- it's a story that Alice Walker wrote
00:21 about black people and their struggles.
00:24 But even though it's a black struggle,
00:27 it transcends color, race, gender, religion.
00:31 Because at the very base of it, it's a story about humanity.
00:36 You know, we all have struggles.
00:38 We, as humans, we fall, we get up, we transgress.
00:44 We have transgressors that we need to forgive.
00:47 And that's what life is all about.
00:51 And what do you like the most about your character?
00:54 This woman who breaks the rules, do you play to her in any way?
01:00 I love playing women like that.
01:04 You know, Cookie was one.
01:06 Even Katherine Johnson, in her quietness,
01:10 she was a quiet storm, you know?
01:14 I just love us.
01:16 I love women, because I know what we go through.
01:18 I am one.
01:19 And I just love us so much.
01:21 And whenever I get a chance to play a role like that,
01:25 even Cookie, who--
01:27 if you didn't know why she was the woman she was,
01:30 you might just stereotype her.
01:32 You might just look at her, but she's just
01:33 a loud, black, sassy woman.
01:35 But it was important to me to show
01:37 the why she was the way she was.
01:40 Just like it was important for me to show
01:41 why Suge was the way she was.
01:43 Because she was the Cookie of the 1920s, you know?
01:47 That was a time when women were supposed
01:49 to be seen and not heard.
01:50 And this woman went against the grain.
01:52 She even-- her father kicked her out and left her
01:57 to the streets.
01:58 And so she's running, and with this man and that man,
02:00 chasing the love of her father.
02:02 And it was a woman who taught her
02:05 what real love looked like.
02:08 They taught each other.
02:09 Celia and Suge saw each other.
02:13 These are women who hadn't been seen.
02:15 And it's weird, because Suge has all these eyeballs on her.
02:19 But these people are sexualizing her.
02:22 And they're looking at her because she's pretty
02:24 and her talent.
02:24 But no one is really looking into her soul
02:27 to see her and her hurt and the things that make her tick
02:31 or the things that make her happy.
02:32 Not even the man she's going to see
02:34 missed her who she has children with.
02:38 Do you remember the first time you
02:41 watched "The Color Purple" by Steven Spielberg,
02:44 and what went through your mind?
02:47 Wow.
02:48 For me, I was 15.
02:51 And I started understanding that it was
02:58 acting that I wanted to do.
03:01 And when I saw all of that incredible black excellence
03:05 on the screen, that's when I knew
03:08 I could make my dreams come true.
03:11 I was like, I could do that.
03:12 And I want to do work like that.
03:14 I want to do work that if humans are gone from this Earth
03:20 and some alien form comes down and dig up a time capsule,
03:24 they will find me in "The Color Purple."
03:26 [LAUGHS]
03:28 (laughing)
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