The Color Purple (1985): 20 Shocking Facts You Totally Missed

The Color Purple (1985): 20 insane behind-the-scenes facts you never knew

Spielberg hesitated before taking the job and admitted years later he simply wasn't mature enough to fully capture what the story demanded. Several Black filmmakers were considered first. Quincy Jones read the novel in 1982, fought to get it made for three years, and then also composed the score. Without him it likely never reaches the screen.

Oprah tracked down Spielberg's office herself after casting directors ignored her, left message after message, and when she finally got in the room Spielberg looked at her and said you are Sophia. Then she gained weight for the role, crashed into depression when it didn't come off after filming, and later called it the catalyst for her lifelong struggle with body image.

Whoopi Goldberg was performing one-woman shows in a small San Francisco theater when Alice Walker attended, walked straight to Spielberg, and told him she had found her lead. Goldberg improvised the shaving scene entirely from a childhood memory of her grandmother braiding hair. Spielberg recognized what was happening and just let the camera roll.

Danny Glover softened some of the character's harshest written lines because he felt the uncut script was too cruel to perform. After release, strangers spat at him in public for years. The cast formed a private healing circle in their dressing rooms between takes. Sometimes Glover quietly joined them and apologized for the brutality he'd just filmed.

Eleven Oscar nominations. Zero wins. The reunion scene in the field was nearly cut. Cast members reportedly begged Spielberg to keep it. Alice Walker wept at the first screening and briefly considered pulling her support from the film entirely.

And the bonus: studio executives pushed Spielberg to recast Oprah or cut her role after early test screenings. She found out, checked herself into a weight loss camp convinced she had destroyed her only shot at stardom. Spielberg called her personally and told her nobody was taking Sophia away from her.

⏱ Timestamps in the chapters below
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