Oscar Nominated Actors Danielle Brooks & Da'Vine Joy Randolph

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My guest tonight, says one of the stars of the Broadway musical The Color Purple.

Please welcome, Danielle brought.

What a lovely audience you have.

This is.

I mean, I'm so used to seeing you in prison overalls, no man, so clean up well gans, just like I'm so easy, you know, it's just like, yeah, you're beautiful.

You look for it.

Thank you so much to be here.

Thank you.

I spent weeks, I mean when we started the show, I spent weeks just to be like, I just want to get one.

Joke into the show where I get to a tasting. Thank you.

So I'm such a huge fan of yours insane obviously oranges and you black. I got to see the Color Purple thing. You are on an amazing trajectory right now. Are you enjoying every moment?

I am. I am taking it all in.

I feel so incredibly blessed to have two major jobs, three Angry Birds included. I just feel so grateful that I get to do it all.

I know, I'm a angry Birds. Yeah my bragging, that's impression.

That's really impression, because I mean it's you see you can see the roles being formed, you know, playing a powerful woman in prison fighting nods, and playing a powerful woman fights against segregation, and playing a.

Powerful bird still though still still, you can see that you're diversify, Yes, very diverse in the roles that I let Let's let's talk about the color Purple.

For a second.

I mean, honestly, one of the most amazing stories.

Thank you.

You know you are powerful on stage.

I didn't know you could sing like that. Yeah, and you were inspired by the story when you went to watch it?

Was it eleven years ago? Yes, ten eleven years ago. My father took me to see my first Broadway show. We had gotten a free ticket to New York because I had done this internship and he was like, you want to come to a show? And I said yes, And it was the color purple.

Wow.

And so I remember sitting in the audience just like this, fifteen years old, just.

Crying, and my dad was with me.

My dad's a big dude, and the seats at theaters are pretty small, so he was like not having it.

He was like, this is not working for me. So he stood after intermission for the rest of the show show, and I was like, whatever, you go, do you?

Because I'm so immersed in this story and it really has changed my life.

It made me want to go study for it.

So I ended up going to school in New York for theater, and then ten years later here I am and so I but I made sure when my dad came to open a night that I got him a seat on the on the edge, feet.

Out, so that it wouldn't have to screeze, you could be comfortable.

I've always been fascinated by the fact that you have a show predominantly black.

In the audience, which you don't see on Broadway, but you also have people that.

Are chiming in the entire time.

How do you keep your focus because there are people in the audience You'll say something, You'll be like, there's only one answer and it's Jesus, and someone shouting Jesus. You're trying to how do you stop yourself from it?

Very hard to navigate. It really is challenging. Being on Broadway stage is in a very difficult thing. Two and a half hours. You're just focused, and it's really hard to stay focused when you have audience members like in the middle of hell No, screaming hell No, back or on their phones. They're like, but it's sometimes it's fueling.

It's like, yeah, hell no.

And it makes me really get into character even more because I know that people are supporting me and they're right along with me on the story.

But there is one there's one point where I thought the audience would have joined in the mob beating up the man.

Like there was a point where you're like, oh, we're fighting, we're fighting, we're fighting. We don't know what.

Yeah, it's it's a it's a beautiful production. Orange is the New Black. You're still working on it, still work, still amazing, Thank you.

June seventeenth, it comes out season four. It's wait, we're gonna be watching. I really think it's the best.

Is it ever weird for you that people on Netflix and chilling to you?

Do you ever think about that?

Oh? That in my head?

Yeah, the next time tell me doing a scene, you can think about that.

And angry Birds.

Let's talk about angry birds.

Yes, that is so amazing.

It's my first animated film that I'm doing.

That is so amazing. Congratulations. And you play.

I play a crossing guard, but no, like if my character actually has a lot more to the story, I don't want to spoil it, and I've been told not to spoil it, but she is pretty crucial to the story.

So it's been pretty fun.

Of the three major roles you've played, which one has been the most challenging for you?

Angry Birds? By far, by far, by far.

I mean to be so invested in every vocal range.

No, I'm making that up. Was me trying to make a joke.

You were gonna you You're gonna win a Tony for that. I could see. This is like, you know, I'll save it.

I'll save this for the Color Purple.

It's really fun to have you.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Danielle the Color Purple ball Away, y'all broke everybody.

My guest tonight is the Tony nominated actors stars in a new film, The Holdovers. Please welcome, Davine, join Randolf.

Okay, thank you in mine.

Thank you so much for being here.

It's wonderful to see you.

It's so good to see you.

Yes, we went to the same high school in high school. Yeah yeah, but we were from i mean Central Pennsylvania and you did this movie. You have to do a Boston accent in this movie. That was that hard to I mean, I'm someone who's terrible at accents, really, I mean awful.

I don't know.

If you heard the Trump one, you just got to Yeah.

But was it hard to get into the Boston accent? Was it hard to get out of the Boston accent?

It helped because we were filming in Boston, so that helped. But it was hard because.

The accent that I'm doing is like a seventies Boston African American dialect. So I'm not sounding like Mark Wahlberg, you know what I mean. So everybody's walking around like Wallburgs and they're like, ohh and I'm like, it's different.

It's different.

So sometimes it would throw me a little bit, and so I just would have like certain key words that would help me get it back into it.

Yeah, do you can you share any of your key No?

I used to before they said action.

I would be like, oh, mister Hannah Hannam and just say his name, and that would like kind of settle me back into it.

Is there anything you specifically watched or listened to to get into that?

Like last summer it's from Boston, And so I would watch a lot of her interviews and stuff like that because it was more to the time period.

And yeah, a lot of YouTube.

Clips and stuff like that, and that kind of helped me constantly have that in my head.

And that's great. You got to listen to Donna Summers and yeah, right, like Mark Wahlberg, and you've done I mean, you've done so many incredible things. You've got to work with so many incredible people. You know, Eddie Murphy, Paul GIAMAI, Steve Martin. Are there any other people that you're like, really wanting to work with.

I really want to work with Brad Cooper.

I saw the trailer the other night of Maestro, and it looks amazing. Yeah, the way that he just died, I like people that just want to die fully in he resembles him in an interesting way, and I think that's both with the magic of you know, movies, but also his commitment to the role that it's just I was like, Oh, he's really he's dedicated. So that was exciting for me that I was like, I would love to work with him.

Yeah, that's it.

I imagine you want to work with other people at the top of their game, and yeah, I saw I saw Bridley Cooper in New York recently, and I like, it took me everything not to be.

Like, hi, yeah, exactly, he's a handsome one. Yeah.

And then what about other roles anything that, Like, I mean, you've done a mix of serious comedy.

I think I want to start getting into biopics. I think that would be really fun. And that I started off of singing, so I think that could be a really nice way to merge the two.

Yeah, I think biopics and start playing some real women.

I think, great, get this lady some real women, and your character Mary in this she's a she's a cook.

Do you are you good at cooking?

I am good at cooking. I love cooking.

And that was kind of like not a deal breaker, but that was something that I said to the director Alexander Payne. I was like, if I do this, I really need real food. And so he was really cool about it. He was like, Okay, what is the Christmas menu? And I was like really, yeah, yeah, And so I cook in real life and real time. I cook soup, oatmeal, a roasta chicken, and ate like a breakfast because I'm hungover.

That sounds great.

I want to be in this movie. You're gonna me food I.

Don't.

I would like, I like to think I can cook, but I just don't. I don't do it because I don't like to clean up.

And I gotta take somebody clean up.

I know.

I need to make people to clean up from you.

You know.

So that's the thing. You just invite people. I'm like, oh my god, I want to cook for you clean up.

That's a that's a great.

Yeah.

I got to meet better friends.

And you.

Okay, so you had to pick up smoking for this role.

Did you have a hard time? I love you said it. You had to pick up smoking? Pick up you todtion? Yeah, the joy of an addiction?

Yeah? Did you?

Did you get addicted?

Did you have to?

I was really nervous about it. I was like, ooh, I feel like I might have that addiction gene, what's going to go happen?

And so they gave me before we started shooting, the director sent over two big boxes of like natural fake ones, and it just wasn't working for me, and like because the it was fake and it looked fake while doing it. And so I started using America conspirits because they have like, you know, there's different like I call it gradients of addiction, right, that nicotine gets like stronger and stronger. So I like the blue pack, which I think is like the lighter

They're like, she's lying. She never smokes a day in her life. So puff puff, I was going, I mean, good for you, thank you treatment, and I smoked my life for her.

Good good.

It's an absolute pleasure to have you on this show. It's so good to see you. I'm so happy to see all your success, and I hope it keeps going. And give this lady real lady to pay.

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