Imagine your first feature film being a new adaptation of The Color Purple alongside Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo and Corey Hawkins? That is something that Phylicia Pearl Mpasi doesn’t have to imagine as it is her reality. A TV writer and Broadway performer, Mpasi was elated to be part of this cast.
Mpasi shared with me that she’d been trying to be part of The Color Purple, even auditioning for the Broadway show in the past. Mpasi shared, “I’d been auditioning for this for a couple of years. For the Broadway production, they told me ‘No.’ For the tour production, they told me ‘No.’ For the version of older Celie in this film, they told me ‘No.’ So, by the time they came back to me, I was like, ‘Well, it’s gotta be one of these things, okay? I need to get it.'”
Check out the full interview with Phylicia Pearl Mpasi below:
Regarding her television writing and Broadway experience, I asked Mpasi how she thought that those informed or helped her performance as young Celie in the film.
Mpasi told me, “Well, having the medium, especially of musical theater with this musical film was so helpful. Blitz and I had many conversations of just getting to the core of how musicals are written – why is a character singing, why are they singing in this style of music, why are they singing at this time? Especially for Celie, I was singing a new song in the film, ‘She Be Mine,’ and we talked about what is the inspiration and what is the impetus for this song. And it was when she sees her daughter and she believes her daughter recognizes her, and what she feels is relief that her daughter is alive because it was an answered question. The songs are answering a lot of questions in the piece, and I think it allowed me to be a well-rounded actor and have a lot of different tools in my toolbox that I could pull from.”
As Mpasi portrays young Celie and shares many scenes with Halle Bailey, who plays her on-screen sister, Nettie, I told the actress that the scenes the pair shared were so great and there was an ease to their sisterhood. So I asked Mpasi how it was for them to build their camaraderie on and off set.
Mpasi said, “When we first met at the chemistry read, she was like, ‘Um, do you want to go over the scenes or anything? I’m happy to help you!’ And so, from day one she was just so supportive of me and it was important to both of us to really showcase the joy and the love between the sisters, ’cause that’s the true love story of the film – it’s the relationship between the two sisters.”
Of course, this is just the beginning of what is sure to be a long career for Mpasi. So now that the actress has a musical film under her belt, what genre would she like to tackle in her future endeavours?
Mpasi eagerly shared, “Ooo, I’m ready to be a hero! I’m ready to be a superhero in some kind of way. You know, I be at the gym, I be running. And then, as a pinnacle, I wanna play Viola Davis’ daughter in something because I’ve been told I look like her and remind people of her. And so, I’m trying to manifest that in my life.”