The new musical film version of The Color Purple is still wowing audiences, but one of the film’s leads almost turned down the role.
While Fantasia has been lauded for bringing her depiction of Celie over from the hit Broadway show, the singer and actress told PEOPLE that she almost declined the invitation to reprise her role for the new movie.
“I hated it,” she said of her award-winning run in stage show. “That was around the time that my life was so crazy, so it was almost like carrying my cross and Celie’s cross. I didn’t know how to come out of the character.”
After her theater run ended, Fantasia says she had to recovery both emotionally and physically. “I had to have surgery to remove two tumors on my vocal cords,” she says.
When the call came to check her interest and availability to do the movie, the Grammy Award winning artist says she had to think long and hard on if she was up for it.
“I was like, ‘I’m not sure if I can do it or if I want to.’,” Fantasia recalls of her mulling over the offer before getting new inspiration from the changes director Blitz Bazawule made to Celie’s story. “He showed me he was giving Celie an imagination this go-round for audiences to see how she got through. I was all in.”
Though Fantasia earned a Golden Globe nomination for her starring role in the film and says she’s glad she said yes, the process “was taxing” on the former “American Idol” winner because it interrupted some important self-work she was in the middle of doing at the time.
“I had just started trauma therapy,” she explains, and during the sessions “they go back into your childhood and start to help you heal things you’ve either forgotten or suppressed that are hindering you from adulthood. I had to stop therapy and allow Celie to be my life coach.”
Executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, The Color Purple is currently playing in theaters across the country.
