DANIELLE BROOKS

From Broadway to the big Screen, the joyful actress wants to be a reflection of the world that I actually live in."

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.