Fantasia Barrino & Danielle Brooks to Star in 'The Color Purple' Movie, Reprising Their Broadway Roles

Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks have landed the lead roles in the upcoming movie musical The Color Purple.

Both of the ladies have starred in the musical on Broadway and will now be reprising their roles as Celie and Sofia on the big screen.

Fantasia played the role of Celie on Broadway during the musical’s original production in 2007. Danielle originated the role of Sofia in the Broadway revival in 2015 and received a Tony nomination for her performance.

Click inside to find out what they said about landing the roles…

The news was announced during the Soul of a Nation special, which aired on ABC on Thursday night (February 3).

Fantasia was asked how she relates to the role and she said, “The color of my skin. When I was younger, my lips were always bigger, the biggest thing on my body. I remember being on Idol and having to come up with this whole thing and I said, ‘My lips are big, but my talent is bigger.’ I had started accepting who I was at that age, but when I was younger, it was things that I dealt with, just feeling beautiful, wanting a certain kind of love. So we relate in a lot of ways.”

The Color Purple was previously a movie back in 1985 and now Warner Bros. is turning the Broadway musical into a film as well. The original movie’s director Steven Spielberg and star Oprah Winfrey are among the producers of the new film, which will be directed by Black is King filmmaker Blitz Bazawule.

During the special, we were shown a video of when Oprah delivered the casting news to Danielle and it was an emotional moment!

Taraji P. Hensen, H.E.R., and Corey Hawkins are also starring in the upcoming movie.