Within the Steven Spielberg film, The Color Purple the three main actors in the film include, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover. The character played by Glover and Goldberg and Whinfrey are categorized as stars.
A star is a distinctive screen persona who is well known and popular with the movie going public, often to the point that some avid movie fans become deeply curious about the actor’s private life. Oprah Winfrey, although this film was her acting debut, was already a well-known celebrity, having a daily talk show which aired nationally. Her career has mostly been based in journalism and production. However she has done limited acting, she went on to star in Beloved (1998), and Annie Lee Cooper in Selma (2014) where she plays a similar character as that in The Color Purple. She seemingly is typed cast as her character in the Spielberg film, abused/battered underrepresented black female, except she has expanded far beyond that with animated roles in The Bee Movie (2007) and Disney’s The Princess and the Frog (2009). She is hired based on her celebrity and ability to attract an audience.
Danny Glover classifies as a character actor “actors are able to fit invisibly into a wide variety of disparate characters, adapting to the needs of each script and director they work with, known as character actors” (2014). Although he has been cast in major films several times, he has the ability to transform from character to character without gaining the interest of the audience to apply the stardom aspect to the point that people are interested in his private life. Glover has performed in several films that are all completely different characters. In The Color Purple he plays a dramatic role as a womanizing abusive husband. He later obtains role in Lethal Weapon films where he does a comedic performance as an action star. To further support the idea that Glover is a character actor he “has appeared in three films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Places in the Heart (1984), The Color Purple (1985) and Witness (1985)”IMBD.
Whoopi Goldberg plays the main character in the film Ceilie, she is an abused woman who obtains independence later in life. Goldberg classifies as a personality actor, her presence is vibrant and unique, her delivery and look doesn’t allow a lot of room for character acting and her presence is so profound that she is cast based on her personality alone. The text states that “. Personality actors are, at some level, playing themselves”. In The Color Purple and a handful of other films she is playing another character but for films such as Sister Act I and II Jumping Jack Flash and Ghost, she truly plays a variation of her own persona.
References
Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2014). Film: From watching to seeing (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. This text is a Constellation™ course digital materials (CDM) title.
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Scene with all three actors;
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