Sherri Dennis // Entertainment // EEW Magazine Online

 EEW Magazine Online has been buzzing about the brand-new upcoming Warner Bros’ film adaptation of the musical, The Color Purple—and now we have even more to talk about!

Fantasia Taylor will star as Celie, and Danielle Brooks will play Sofia, with both reprising their respective Broadway roles. The exciting news was revealed Thursday during ABC’s Soul of a Nation: Screen Queens Rising special.

Taylor, 37, and Brooks, 32, join an already stellar cast that includes Taraji P. Henson, H.E.R. and Halle Bailey in the Blitz Bazawule directed film that begins production this spring and is set for a 2023 release.

As part of the big reveal, Oprah Winfrey, who got her big screen break as Sofia in the original 1985 film based on Alice Walker’s novel that was nominated for 11 Oscars, shared the news with Brooks over Zoom.

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“I am here representing all things purple to tell you that you are our Sophia,” Winfrey, 68, said to Brooks who broke down sobbing joyfully. “I’m so happy to pass whatever baton from 35 — almost 40 — years ago to you.”

Taylor, who stormed the scene as the American Idol Season 3 winner, will once again play Celie, originally portrayed by Whoopi Goldberg in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film adaptation of Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

To share the special moment with fans, Taylor uploaded a tearful Instagram video of the moment she received the news and jumped for joy.

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In an emotional caption, she wrote, “As I sit tonight and reflect on the journey my life has taken, I believe I now understand what redemption truly feels like.”

The Grammy-winning songstress who has been through various public ups and downs, is now happily married to Kendall Taylor, and the couple recently welcomed their first child together, daughter Keziah.

“The last time I stepped into this character, the similarities between what I portrayed on stage and what I experienced in my own reality were too close for comfort,” said a now much happier Taylor. “I’ve learned since then that my pain was only an introduction to a greater purpose of meaning and assignment. I hope that every little black girl who is fighting to be heard and recognized also promises to never give up in spite of the costs.”

Taylor concluded with a Scripture reference from Matthew 20:16: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.”

The upcoming film is a musical version of the Broadway show that ran from 2005-2008. Taylor played Celie from 2007-2008 and Brooks played Sofia in the 2015-2017 revival for which she won a Tony.

Watch the ladies receive the news below.