Interviewed By: Chloé Taylor Brown

Chloé – Maria, how does it make you feel when we, the people take you back to the beginning of your career, which was your role in The Color Purple?

Maria – It takes me back to a place that was very symbolic and very significant in my life. And I’ve never forgotten that feeling. Of course, it’s matured into appreciation and more layers have been added, but it always gets right down to that root of what that meant at that point in my life. And it was the start. It was actually the start of my professional career. And people constantly bring it back up. And I’m so thankful and grateful for that because it could have been one of those movies that would be like here one minute, gone the next, but I’m grateful not just for the fact that it’s had its staying power, but for the content, the whole movement of what it has inspired people to do.

Read the complete interview on page 50 in the Holiday Issue of Flourish Digital Magazine.