You probably remember that a film adaptation of The Color Purple — specifically, the smash Broadway musical that was based on Alice Walker’s 1982 book — came out last year.
The star-studded cast included former American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino, who played the story’s protagonist Celie Harris-Johnson.
During the musical’s initial Broadway run, Cynthia Erivo played Celie — from 2015 to 2017, specifically.
Cynthia’s performance was highly acclaimed. She won a Tony in 2016, and she also won an Emmy and a Grammy for her work. It’s not a stretch to say that The Color Purple is literally the reason why she’s close to EGOT’ing.
So there was quite a bit of confusion when Cynthia wasn’t cast in The Color Purple‘s film adaptation — and judging from recent comments she made on a recent episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, it ain’t getting any less confusing any time soon.
So, during the chat, Marc mentioned that he attended a “friends and family” screening of The Color Purple before its release. Cynthia, apparently, did not get the invite.
“Oh, wow, wow, wow. Oh, yeah, I didn’t get that invite,” she replied.
Marc duly pointed out that it “feels like there’s a little tension” between her and the filmmakers, and Cynthia responded, “Well, I don’t know why though.”
Marc then asked the million-dollar question — was she ever up for the role in the film? Cynthia’s response was…interesting.
“Um, that’s a long, complicated conversation that I probably shouldn’t even get into,” she replied. “Lord knows why. But, you know.”
I certainly don’t! But something tells me that we’ll find out more about what happened in the future, be it near or far. We’ll see! If you managed to see The Color Purple on Broadway and have opinions on all of this, we’d love to hear from you in the comments, too.