Danielle Brooks Suffered Concerning Injury While Filming ‘The Color Purple’

Danielle Brooks is opening up about how physically taxing playing Sofia in the new adaptation of The Color Purple was and the lasting impact it had on her body. While filming the scene of her character being arrested, she threw her back out. “I ended up having to do that scene over the course of two days for multiple hours a day, and it pulled my back out,” Brooks told Indiewire, as reported by ESSENCE. “Swinging back and forth trying to get the mob off of me.”

In the scene, a group of men beat and later arrest Sofia. “Of course, we have an incredible stage combat leader [stunt coordinator Mark Hicks] and his crew were fabulous, but doing it over and over, that really took me out, where I had to do physical therapy and go to the chiropractor for a few weeks to recover while still having to work,” she explained. But it wasn’t enough to make her quit.

“I pride myself on being a physical actor,” Brooks noted. “That’s where I live. I love finding how I can use all of my body for the character. I just want to use everything that I can.” She also credits the method acting she learned from her training at Julliard to helping in her continuing the project and in her recovery.

“I wrote in my journal at the end of it, I was like, ‘After 70-plus days of playing Sofia, I’m completely depleted.’ I was so drained,” Brooks said. “I do credit Juilliard for teaching us how to come out of character, how to not always go to the darkest of places within ourselves, to know when you do go there, that there is a way to pull out that you don’t have to stay there. Each actor, you find your own way. And again, mine is taking off that wig right away, putting that hot towel on my face, taking the clothes off, wearing my jumpsuit and my Dr. Martens, getting my swag back, getting my spirit back. That helps me.”

Brooks, along with her co-star Taraji P. Henson, has been open about the lackluster conditions on set the cast was initially given. Henson says the cast was given rental cars to drive to and from the set, which she considered a liability due to their celebrity. After complaining, she and her co-stars were provided drivers and security. Brooks also noted Henson was responsible for ensuring the cast had their own dressing rooms and adequate meals.