Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 520th episode of the Hollywood

reporters Awards Chatter

podcast. I'm the host Scott Feinberg and my guest today is a

tremendously gifted stage and screen actress who is equally at home in dramas

comedies musicals and everything in between.

There's something about her and colors.

Indeed, the two projects for which she is best known are the Netflix comedy-turned-Drama

series, Orange is the new black, on which she appeared from 2013 through

2019 with the Daily Beast calling her the breakout actress of the show, and the musical, The Color Purple, which she was a part of on Broadway from

2015 through 2017, resulting in a Grammy win and a Tony nomination, and to which she has returned for the film version that has been a huge

hit since debuting in theaters on Christmas Day of 2023 and which has

already brought her Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe and Critics' Choice Award nominations with additional recognition likely to come.

Danielle Brooks

Over the course of a conversation at the London West Hollywood Hotel, the 34-year-old and I discussed her journey from Greenville, South Carolina, to Juilliard, to Fame, how her part on Orange is the New Black expanded from two episodes to series regular to show

Steeler, and how the color purple first entered the picture for her during its fourth season,

why she doubted herself even when she was simultaneously starring in and garnering massive acclaim for both of those productions

and how she felt years later when it was uncertain that she would be offered the chance to reprise her part in the big screen adaptation of the

Color Purple Musical, plus much more. And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. Daniel Brooks, I'm very excited to get to have you on the podcast.

I'm trying to think, I think it was early in Orange New Black when I had the treat of doing a

Q&A with you and all the ensemble the key ensemble and I was just saying as

you came in the room it it's really amazing, but not surprising to see, you know, 10, 11 years.

Like, you were always going to go places, but this has been fun to watch.

...