'The Color Purple' author Alice Walker is opening up about the importance of seeing Celie and Shug's romance on screen in the new film. Steven Spielberg's 1985 feature adaptation of 'The Color Purple' saw the characters of Celie and Shug share a short kiss, but not much else hints at the love affair that was integral to author Walker's novel the movie was based on. Now, the new musical adaption of 'The Color Purple', makes it clear that Taraji P. Henson's Shug and Fantasia Barrino's Celie are romantically involved.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00 "Put it on. This ain't me. Hush. We need to look like we belong. Let's see this smile
00:07 and color. Oh, sweet and loving God."
00:11 The Color Purple author Alice Walker is opening up about the importance of seeing Celie and
00:15 Suge's romance onscreen in the new film. Steven Spielberg's 1985 feature adaptation of The
00:21 Color Purple saw the characters of Celie and Suge share a short kiss, but not much else
00:25 since the love affair that was integral to Walker's novel the movie was based on. Now,
00:30 the new musical adaptation of The Color Purple, released on Christmas Day, makes it clear
00:34 that Fantasia Barrino's Celie and Taraji P. Henson's Suge are romantically involved. Walker
00:39 tells The Hollywood Reporter she is overjoyed that Suge and Celie's relationship is finally
00:43 depicted as she intended. She said, "I really love it that audiences have to take away the
00:48 reality that Suge and Celie become lovers, because I think that we have really needed
00:52 help there. We really needed to see that love is love. You know that people love whoever
00:57 they love, and it is their right to do that." Oprah Winfrey, a producer on the new film
01:01 and an Oscar nominee for her role as Sophia in the 1985 movie, says just the brief kiss
01:06 the two characters had in the first film was a lot for its time. She said in an interview
01:10 with THR for a recent cover story on the film, "God, there was so much talk about that kiss
01:14 in 1985. And it wasn't even a kiss in 1985. It was like a pet. And we thought certainly
01:20 now you can express the nature of their relationship." The Color Purple opened to $18.1 million on
01:26 Monday, the second-best showing ever for a movie opening on Christmas Day, and the best
01:30 since 2009. For more on this story, go to THR.com. This is The Hollywood Reporter News.
01:36 -