If there’s one thing Danielle Brooks has learned about being in Hollywood, from her post-Juilliard beginnings in New York to her onscreen work today, it’s to have faith. In a volatile business like this, you’ll need it. “I auditioned for a ton of shows and would get callback after callback, but I was just not landing it,” she says of her early days. “Now I understand why, because what I now know is that God’s plan for your life will always be better than what you’ve imagined for yourself.”
For Brooks, that plan was making her Broadway debut as Sofia in the 2015 revival of The Color Purple musical—10 years after she watched the original production at age 15, her first Broadway show ever. Her performance would earn her a Grammy Award and a Tony nomination. And eight years later, she’d reprise the role in this year’s film adaptation.
Despite her fairy-tale-like full-circle moment, Brooks understands the power of “no.” She’s heard it with rejection, but she’s belted it as Sofia, a woman who stands up for herself with an emphatic “Hell no” in the face of bigotry and misogyny. Onstage and onscreen, Brooks has played women who wield a certain kind of power, whether they’re aware of it or not: Taystee in Orange Is the New Black; Leota Adebayo in DC’s Peacemaker; Mahalia Jackson in Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia; Berniece in The Piano Lesson; Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
Born in Georgia and raised in South Carolina, Brooks went to a performing arts high school before moving to New York at 17 to enroll at Juilliard. The child of a minister and a deacon, she owes a lot of her craft to the church. It’s where she learned to sing, acted in her first play, and practiced public speaking in front of the congregation. The community even raised funds to help pay for her Juilliard tuition. “I highly thank my community, especially my church community, because that’s where I really fell in love with acting,” she says, dressed in a black T-shirt and chrome silver nails.
Brooks sees her success as being not only for herself, but for a larger collective, especially plus-size Black women like her who are rarely represented onscreen beyond stereotypes. “That’s what I signed up for as an actor—to be a reflection of the world that I actually live in, to represent the person who doesn’t feel she has a voice and who isn’t seen,” she says. “Even to represent myself.”
“At the end of the day, I got into this acting thing because I loved it. It was my play. It was my escape. I felt like a kid on a playground,” Brooks says. If she steps into a role or reads a script and doesn’t feel that way, she knows it’s time to reassess. “I always have a phrase: ‘If you ain’t having fun, you ain’t doing it right.’”
On what being a woman in Hollywood means to her
“It’s pretty amazing. I know that word is general, but that’s how it feels to me, because I didn’t really see many people who looked like me in Hollywood growing up. I definitely did see Black faces, of course. There were Black women working, thank God, but I’m speaking more to the plus-size woman, to the dark-skinned, curvy girl—the one who had fuller cheeks, who wasn’t always chosen first. I feel like I became the person that I wanted to see onscreen, not the person who was playing the mammy or the best friend all the time. Within my career, I’ve been able to really break open some boxes and show that women who look like me are capable of playing way more roles than what we typically are cast as.”
On women helping women
“I’ve been blessed to have a lot of incredible women championing me. What is so fantastic is I feel like we’re in an era where we know that we’re in a competitive industry—we know that most likely our homegirl is going out for the same part—but instead of withholding information, we share, we uplift. We say, ‘If it’s not for me, it’s for you.’ I feel like that’s been the most beautiful thing. There’s a plethora of women that I feel that connection to, where we can be there for one another and understand that we’re not taking anything away from each other. Because what’s truly is for us, is for us. Some of these are up-and-coming girls. Some of these girls have been working for years. There’s a lot of us out here that truly are linking hands and saying, ‘Hey, let’s do this together. Let’s talk about contracts. Let’s talk about what you need to get to the next level. Let’s talk about what’s working, what’s not, how to do this being mothers, how to do this when we don’t want to conform to the normalities of what it is to be in Hollywood and how people act.’ That’s really been a saving grace, having those women.”
On watching The Color Purple on Broadway as a teenager
“I was mesmerized from the minute that curtain opened and I saw LaChanze and Renée Elise Goldsberry sitting up in that tree. I felt so seen in that moment. I felt like, ‘I can do this.’ Because growing up in my small town, the closest you were going to be to TV was being a news anchor. That’s the closest I knew. This was a way in. I finally saw a door.”
On the healing power of The Color Purple
“It was my first Broadway show. But, it brought a lot of pressure for me. I had this imposter syndrome and did not understand how, in my first Broadway show, I’m Tony-nominated. All of these things started creeping up of, “I don’t deserve this.” But getting to sing “Hell No,” the song that Sofia sings every night, and say hell no to my fears, say hell no to this voice that is putting doubt [in me] and saying that I’m not worth it—really was healing for me.”
On embodying Sofia’s strength
“It was empowering. I think it’s funny because I actually think ‘Sofia’ means is wisdom. The thing that I love about the story of Sofia is that we talk a lot about generational curses and how we’re, as a community, trying to break those things. I feel like she, in her family and in her community, was definitely ahead of her time. She was the one that was trying to break those generational curses of being submissive and falling into the stereotypical role that they were supposed to play in society. So, it was really cool to embody somebody that was ahead of her time.”
On embracing the beauty in everything
“It is necessary....We get so caught up in all of the things that really don’t matter, that are monetary. You get a new house, you get that award, or you get a new car. What matters is the times that my daughter sneaks up in our room at 5 A.M. and I get to have that snuggle with her before taking her to school. Or that moment where my husband smacks me on the butt to let me know that he’s thinking of me and loves me. [Laughs] It’s those little moments that are really precious, and that you have to find the beauty in. For me, it resonated even louder being on strike, because I had no other choice but to spend time with my family. It made me really put in perspective, just that reminder of why I’m doing this, and who I’m doing it for. “‘I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it,’ that’s what Shug says. You take in those moments. You do look for that color purple in your life.”
On being a role model
“What I’m learning is, I can’t quit because this is not only about me, it’s about the other young girl that’s coming up in 2026, who is coming out of school and wants to pursue Juilliard, or wants to pursue Broadway, that they see somebody where they can say, ‘Oh, man, I can do this.’ That same feeling when I watched The Color Purple in 2005 with LaChanze, I want someone to feel that and be set on the proper path that they’re supposed to be set on by watching me. Does it come with pressure? Yes. But is it unbearable? No, because I have to stay true to myself while doing it.”
On being in the public eye
“The downside of being in the public eye is more the vanity part of it. When it comes to the fashion and how you look in your clothes, we are so much more critical on women than we are on men. Jack Black and Zach Galifianakis can wear whatever the heck they want to, but let Danielle Brooks roll up in a cat-print shirt or something to Jimmy Fallon and people will come for me. That’s been the toughest part of it, feeling the pressure of always looking top-tier with the hair, the makeup, the body—all the things.”
On plus-size fashion
“I do love fashion, but the reality of it is being plus, there aren’t as many options on every level. There’s only so many designers that are truly dressing plus women. My struggle sometimes is not really getting to fully express who I am through fashion and through style, because the options are a lot more limited for myself. It takes a lot more work. Sometimes I don’t have the time to spend on truly showing my authentic style, because I’m running on a plane, or I’m being mommy, or wifey, and also trying to fit in an interview and tape this thing. You don’t have the time, so you just got to throw on what you got.
“I do not think they’re stepping up. The plus movement was a huge thing in 2015, 2016. You had these amazing models that were getting dressed by the top designers, and then all of a sudden it just kind of fell to shit, for lack of a better word. I feel like it’s unfair. Working with ELLE and getting to wear some heavy hitters for the first time in my 11 years of being in this industry? That’s saying something. It’s shameful, to be honest, especially when you are a woman that has the accolades to be at that level. I feel I’m at that level where I should be able to wear, or have the options to wear all of the major labels.
“But I will always shout out Christian Siriano for staying consistent. He’s not trendy about it, and I appreciate him for that, because I could throw out a ton of designers that I’ve worn, but that’s the difference with him. He’s here to stay when it comes to dressing women of all shapes and sizes.”
The best advice she received from Oprah
“That I have everything I need within me, and that the ancestors are with me on my journey. They truly have been. This role has called for a lot physically, mentally sacrificing, being away from my family for so long. So to know that I’m surrounded by love and support, not only from my earthly family, but from my spiritual family that have passed on—they.’re with me. She reminded me that in moments where I felt like, ‘I do not know how I'm going to do this scene again.’ She was there picking up the phone, just available to me. So not only was I taught that lesson, but I also was taught to pass that on to someone as well. When it’s my time, and I’m in a position similar to hers, to make sure to give that same amount of grace, love, and support that she gave me.”
On her hopes for Black women in the industry post-strikes
“It’s the song ‘Get Paid.’ [Laughs] I just want us to have a piece of that pie. People sitting on $45 million a year are living well. I’ve been to some of their houses. You can share some of that pie, because people are really struggling. In turn, we can share that with our people and our community and those in need. It starts at the top.”
Hair by Nikki Nelms for SheaMoisture; makeup by Rebekah Aladdin for Dior Beauty; manicure by Temeka Jackson at A-Frame Agency; set design by Bryan Porter at Owl and the Elephant; produced by Anthony Federici at Petty Cash Production.
A version of this article appears in the December 2023/January 2024 issue of ELLE.
This story is part of ELLE’s 2023 Women in Hollywood portfolio, our annual celebration of the women we loved watching this year. Click the link below for all the cover stories.
