Taraji P. Henson Called Oprah To Advocate For ‘The Color Purple’ Cast

Taraji P. Henson hasn’t been holding back these days when it comes to demanding her worth as an actress. Now she’s revealing the advocacy she had to do behind the scenes for The Color Purple cast.

The musical remake of Alice Walker’s landmark novel hit theaters on Christmas Day and made over $18 million in ticket sales. It was a given that the movie would do well, being a star-studded musical remake of the 1985 original directed by Steven Spielberg that starred Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Danny Glover.

This time around, Spielberg added Winfrey and Quincy Jones to the production team of the 2023 film that starred Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, Deon Cole, Halle Bailey, H.E.R., and Ciara. Many would assume that with a lineup of A-listers on the cast and crew, all their basic necessities would be met during filming.

According to Henson, that wasn’t the case, and she had to speak up in order to see change. There were “a lot of things” the cast ended up receiving only after Henson advocated for them.

One example was the rides they were given after initially being given rental cars that they were responsible for driving themselves to and from the Atlanta set.

“They gave us rental cars, and I was like, ‘I can’t drive myself to set in Atlanta.’ This is insurance liability, it’s dangerous. Now they robbing people. What do I look like, taking myself to work by myself in a rental car?” Henson told The New York Times.

“So I was like, ‘Can I get a driver or security to take me?’ I’m not asking for the moon. They’re like, ‘Well, if we do it for you, we got to do it for everybody.’ Well, do it for everybody! It’s stuff like that, stuff I shouldn’t have to fight for. I was on the set of ‘Empire’ fighting for trailers that wasn’t infested with bugs.”

The behind-the-scenes slipups are issues Henson can only credit to the film consisting of an all-Black cast.

“I’m not the person that pulls the race card every time, but what else is it, then? Tell me. I’d rather it not be race, please give me something else,” she said.

Elsewhere, Henson recalls calling Winfrey to tell the billionaire media mogul “We gotta fix this” after learning the cast had no dressing rooms and were not being provided food on set.

“I remember when we first came and we’re doing rehearsals, they put us all in the same space,” Brooks told The Hollywood Reporter. “We didn’t have our own dressing rooms at the time. We didn’t have our own food…[Oprah] corrected it for us. [Taraji] was our voice.”

It’s the latest reveal Henson has made about advocating her worth after breaking down during an interview with Sirius XM last month over the pay disparities she continues to face despite being an Academy Award-nominated actress. In fact, Henson almost turned down The Color Purple due to the initial pay offer and after being told she had to audition for the role of Shug Avery despite being the director’s top choice, Variety reports.