(20 Nov 2023)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
London – 20 November 2023
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Fantasia Barrino, actor/recording artist:
“Well, you know, I played her in 2007. And that was not the easiest for me because my life was so much like Celie’s – which is when I realized, you know we’re a lot alike. So I said I would never come back and play this role again. I can’t carry her cross. I can’t carry my cross. This is heavy. I will never do it again. So when Scott called — Scott Sanders, one of our producers – he says – he started it off with: ‘I know you’re happy. I know you’re married and you’re in a different place, I can tell. But I need you as my Celie. And I’m like ‘Scott! I’m not sure about that. I had to go talk to my family members to figure out if I was in the place where I was ready to be told that I was ugly … if I was ready to relive a lot of things that I had moved on from. And it just dawned on me – I have a 22-year-old daughter. I have a 2 year-old daughter. And I have a lot of nieces and a lot of young girls that needed to see me stand in this role. And I said, I’ll step into it. It was different this time because I’m older, wiser. So I got to see Celie in a different light. She wasn’t ugly. She wasn’t stupid. She did certain things and spoke in certain ways. Her body language, her eyes. She would say little things that you’d be like, ‘Did Celie just say that?’ And that made me so proud. Also, Blitz gave Celie an imagination. A lot of us live through our imaginations, going through bad things. We imagine ourselves in a better place, we imagine ourselves in a better relationship. We imagine ourselves making good money when we ain’t making no money. And I love that about her. Because how else do we – not just as a Black woman, as a woman, as men, like how do we get to where we want to get to if we don’t imagine – if we don’t write the vision, even when we can’t see it, we write, ‘Dear God, this is what I want in my life. Dear God. I’m ready for a good man in my life. Dear God, I want my family to be closer.’ So I said, I’m all in this time and it felt great.”
AP VIDEO SHOT BY ADAM EGAN
PRODUCTION: MARTINA INCHINGOLO
STORYLINE:
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