Actor Danielle Brooks has blessings to count

Terry Gross (0:00)

This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. When Danielle Brooks started appearing in the Netflix series, Orange Is the New Black, as the character Taystee, she was astonished to find she was recognized wherever she went. Orange was about women in prison, and Brooks played one of those women. When the series premiered in 2013, Brooks was a recent graduate of Juilliard, and Netflix was relatively new to producing original content. Two years later, while still filming Orange, she learned she'd gotten a role in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple as Sophia, the character that Oprah Winfrey played in the 1985 film.

Rather than giving up one of those roles, she continued to shoot Orange while also performing on Broadway.

The Color Purple had special significance for Danielle Brooks. The original production of the musical was the first Broadway show she'd ever seen. It convinced her she wanted to act and that there might be a place for a black woman like her.

She was nominated for a Tony for her performance in the revival and was nominated for an Oscar when she played Sophia again in the 2023 movie adaptation of the Broadway musical. While preparing for this interview, I learned she played the beloved gospel singer Mahalia Jackson in a 2021 biopic for the Lifetime channel that's now streaming on several platforms. She gets to do a lot of singing in that and as you'll hear later, it really shows off how emotionally and physically powerful her voice is. Brooks started singing and acting in church. Her mother is a minister. Her father is a recently retired deacon. Brooks was also recently in a Minecraft movie and in the series Peacemaker. Now she's in a new indie film called If I Go, Will They Miss Me? It's about how one family's life has changed when the husband and father is released from prison and returns home emotionally distant from his wife and two children. Brooks plays the wife and mother who has a steady job and is holding the family together with no help from her husband. Brooks and John Battiste are two of the executive producers. The credit music is John Battiste singing This Bitter Earth.

Danielle Brooks, welcome to Fresh Air. It's such a pleasure to be able to talk with you.

Danielle Brooks (2:12)

Terry, it is so lovely to speak with you too. Thank you for having me.

Terry Gross (2:17)

My pleasure. So in Orange Is the New Black, you play a prisoner. And now in this new movie, you're playing the wife of somebody who's been in and out of prison.

Oh, and in Clemency, the father of your child is on death row. So this is like the third that I'm aware of, the third movie related to prison that you've been in. And I wonder if you see that as related to mass incarceration, like a reflection of mass incarceration.

Danielle Brooks (2:49)

When you put it like that, I'm like, man, I need to do, I don't know, royal queen or something.

Terry Gross (2:56)

Well, you come close and Mahalia.

Danielle Brooks (2:59)

Hey, I love that. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, yeah, this is the world we live in. And for me, I'm always searching, reaching for honesty and truthfulness in what is in this world, you know. I feel like I've been able to do a lot in my career, but yet we do find ourselves back in places like this, you know, when you mention like playing a woman that's incarcerated.

When it comes to Orange Is the New Black and playing Taystee, this inmate, there was just so much complexity to who she was, you know, and to be honest, Terry, I didn't want to play Taystee in the beginning. Why not? You know, because she was an inmate and because I was nervous coming out of Juilliard 21 years old, like, oh my gosh, I'm about to play an inmate and what is that, you know, saying about black women, you know, what viewpoint am I putting out about black women? But then I remember my audition and the casting director saying, you know, I know what's on the page, but she's very lighthearted. She has a lot of heart to who she is, joy to who she is. And I was so excited because I was like, that's the direction I was already planning on going with her. And you see me singing, you know, in the shower, you know, in the beginning, that's the first scene is me singing, tell me something good. And it's just, that's what drew me to her. It was more to her. She was a young woman who actually did not commit the crime. She was in foster care. You know, she started a riot, you know, there was just a lot to the person, you know, and I find that to be true with clemency and in If I Go, Will They Miss Me, especially.