Oprah Winfrey on Personal Experiences with Racism, Life, The Color Purple & the Future of OWN

she's the girl who doesn't need a last name sometimes people were criticized me because I felt that I didn't do enough for race or racism I try to tell stories that allow people to see themselves and the lives of other people you still ever experience at this elevation racism I've experienced it I think the higher up you go in the in the chain of capitalism people don't expect you to be sitting at certain board table I sense that I said do you sense it and you know it plus they go cut cut what is she doing oh my god I'm like terrified Oprah is next [Music] [Music] Larry King now that's the intro our guest is you may not know her is Oprah the only of one of the few people world you don't have to say the last name and she stars in a brilliant new film not often I don't extol movies on this program and I tried not to refer to myself but I saw the butler and the butler is the best civil rights movie I've ever seen all the great dramas I've ever seen one of the great human dramas with an incredible performance by you when did you know you could act I'm gonna sit up straighter for that when did you when did you know you could I mean you were a broadcast I go back to Baltimore yeah we go way back I didn't know I could act even in the color purple Larry I had these I had taken the Stanislavski acting books with me to Bonn real North Carolina where he was shooting the color purple in 1985 because I couldn't figure out I couldn't balance acting with I knew instinctively that you got to figure out a way to let that character be truthful but how do you do that if you're acting and the word act was hanging me up and I wasn't sure I could do it because I'd been an orator before all through high school I grew up doing Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer speeches you suppose speaking at public speaking so I knew I could do that I knew I could do dramatizations which is very different than acting going into the interior so I guess I really didn't know I could do it until that famous scene in the color purple where she comes through the cornfields and says you told Harpo to beat me all my life I had to fight I had to fight my uncle's I had to fight my brothers that scene I had to fight my cousins I never knew I had to fight in my own house I did that in one take why didn't you do more film because I had a day job and actually after beloved you know I was on on the Larry King show for promoting beloved and that was 15 years ago hadn't done in 15 years and I put my heart and soul into that I was a producer for that I really wanted that story to be told and then it was successful I didn't understand the whole I think we got beat that that weekend by something called Chucky I don't know what Chucky was and then I remember saying to my chef after they say you know you lost and Chucky you got beaten by Chucky I say make some macaroni and cheese and I went into it went into it macaroni and cheese have you gotten movie offers over the years yes I've got movie offers over there ears but I gave up the dream because it would be like you the daily I've been a lot of movies but I play myself and you're in and out in one day that's right so if you're gonna commit to something other than playing yourself because I think it's hard to play yourself yeah well who is yourself I know yes in yourself you don't have to act you got to find out who people think yourself is anyway I've given up the dream of acting because the day job had taken over and I was really content with that and said oh well that must that wasn't supposed to be my life so how did the butler come around because Lee Daniels had been calling me about other films and sending me scripts and saying he really really really wanted to work with me and I wanted to work with him after obviously seeing precious I stepped up to help provoke precious and say you know just because I wanted as many eyes on it as possible and I wanted the opportunity to work with him but he called me at the worst time I was going through the building of own and all of the you know Michigan mishegoss and schadenfraude of that and I said Lee you you just couldn't have asked me at a worse time I'm just trying to keep my head above water Here I am just trying to dig myself out of a hole you know I got all this work to do with the network and finding the right people of it because I don't care about that don't care because I'm ready to go with this movie so he said think about it think about it what he said was I'm gonna shoot you out you know that means I'm gonna come in I'm gonna let you come in and I'm gonna shoot all your stuff and you'll be out and it won't take much of your time so I'm gonna how long it take three months okay in and out you know why cuz in the middle of it there was a big hurricane in wedges shoot in New Orleans so I had to stop for that and I was in between shooting Gloria I'd go into the Gloria character come out go interview Rihanna go into the character come out and go interview Jason Russell go interview uh sure so it was a challenging time but I'm now glad I did it I finally said yes because of the story I am a product of the civil rights movement and there are so few stories that I you know strongly strongly believe that if you don't know who you are if you don't understand your history then you have no idea of what your future and the possibility of future can be when I took my boys to see 42 hockey Robin which I knew Jackie very well endowed and Soares first game Wow but I introduced their little baseball player I introduced them to that film but in that film they learned about civil rights that's right this movie the butler yeah who's gonna teach a lot of people I know how hard it was but they're gonna EE know oh you know the other night we came out of a screening and there were some young people like in their 30s saying you know did that do that stuff really happen and I just went yeah that stuff it's so much more stuff happen but you know what is beautiful to see is you know this is an amazing country that we live in that Butler film starts with the butler sitting in the White House reflecting on his life and he and that the whole beautiful open beautiful opening that whole lynching scene so you begin the movie with a lynching and you end it with Obama that is really the arc of this country and for that to happen in one man's lifetime I know it's popular for us to talk about all the changes that need to come and we're not where we need to be but look at how far we actually have come that you can in the span of one man's life Eugene Allen for whom the stories told have that I love that the butler himself Eugene Allen is quoted as saying that you know he went to the inauguration of Obama after being there for eight presidents from Eisenhower and said standing there watching Obama being put into office I never dreamed that we could even dream of such a day and he was in the White House with all of those presidents he'll be back with more with Oprah right after this in the cloud in Chicago and Obama yes yes yes I've started to dream that dream of Obama when I first saw him at the Democratic National I felt something I felt the fire I felt when I saw him the first time having seen remembered the autobiography Miss Jane Pittman of course and Cicely Tyson touched just look at the Broadway yes and when she's holding the babies and says we look at each one of them and we wonder is this the one is this the one and when I saw him I went whoa I believe that's the one this woman you play in the butler yeah is an extraordinary lady she has depth she drinks too much she we took some liberties I'd he yeah he defends her husband and gets mad at him he gets mad at her son yeah and then throws him out of the house when the husband thought there are so many emotional pivotal scene but she is she is every woman you know I write you know I one of the things I tried to do all those years on The Oprah Show sometimes people were criticized me because I felt that I didn't do enough for race or racism but this is what I always understood that for me my role and my goal in life is to open this open people's hearts that's what I do is I I try to tell stories that allow people to see themselves and the lives of other people and for me it was always more powerful and effective to do a show for example on single parents raising their children and just on the panel appearance to have a black father and to show the photographs or images of that father putting his child a bed and reading a story at night that to me is more powerful than doing a story let's talk about fathers black fathers who are raising their children because the goal for me is to show that we are all more like than different and that in our humanity in our ability to express our humaneness we are the same so when you see a father putting his child to bed at night and reading stories and that man is black and you know that's what your husband does and that's what you do you you feel a sense of connection and humanity how did you prove to her though I was so nervous about stepping back into this this this role of acting having not picked up the instrument in 15 years and I called Susan Batson Susan Batson who's an acting coach who's worked with a lot of the the great and I was just happy she took my call like will you coming will you please come into a session with me because I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to cry on cue because you know those years and I was doing the color purple I couldn't cry couldn't cry on cue there was a scene where where I've been in in the color purple there's the Harpo character my husband in the juke joint and I was a kind of I was so excited to be in the color purple that I went every day to set Larry even if I didn't have a role to play I would just be there watching and I was there watching and crying just as a viewer in the background and Stephen saw me and he said I like that I like that I'm gonna turn the camera around this afternoon I want you to do just that and I went do what he says that you just did and I didn't know I didn't know how to do that I didn't know how to I did not have the skill the technical skill to do that on cue and there was a moment where he and Alan da vo the cinematographer they're rolling the camera the cameras on me and I'm just supposed I'm supposed to be crying and I couldn't do it so all night long I cried because I couldn't cry did you know you were making a great movie mine was the first shot the first day I was the first person up I'd never even been to a universal tour I had no idea how movie how a movie worked so I walk in to the juke joint first scene first day and I say I walk in and I am looking for the camera because I have been a student of television my whole life I walk in and I look for the camera and I say how you doing miss Celie and Alan W and Steven yep they go cut cut what is she doing oh my god I'm like terrified and they said because semen comes ideas what are you doing and I said I was just saying the line because but why are you looking in the camera I was saying well aren't I supposed to look in the camera he goes no you're supposed to look at miss Celie is who you're talking to so that was how little I knew about making movies over the years many actors have told me they never liked to see themselves on the screen this is arson and they though always had shoulda did this yeah yeah how do you view that's exactly what happened to me the first time I've seen the second thing Roger Ebert said this to me years ago that it takes about five years before you can you will actually he said that's me what I did comfortable that'll take you five years before you can see he said if I were you I wouldn't look at it for another five years and I actually didn't look at it for another ten how about seeing yourself in the butler in the butler I couldn't see myself I just was like oh god why did I do that and I should have done that and I should have and you were self-critical I was very self-critical the first time all I could see and Phil was gee this movie has been elevated to a place it's bigger than I thought because and I think that that happened because of Lee Daniels and because of forests and obviously because of all of our contribution but because of the vision for the film to be bigger than the story than the life of one person more with Oprah right after these words was far as cast before you know I was cast before forest did you have a selection in him did you ever say well I wouldn't say well we were trying to find someone that would partner with me that would be real al it would be realistic and that I could have a chemistry so what actually happened was I auditioned with several people that day one two three four five he was the sixth person all of them well no not all of them pretty well-known yeah and a couple of them not from this country but I auditioned and he was this I think sixth person that came in he was the Academy Academy Award winner he came in and Lima saying oh gosh we're gonna ask that Academy Award winner to audition and I said it's not even like an audition it's just to feel like does does this work and before he finished I looked at Lee and Lee looked at me and he pulled me into the kitchen because we were at the shuttle my mom and one of those little Suites and Lee goes I think it's him don't you and I go it's definitely him and so we say would you be my husband where did they do the White House scenes they created a house down there New Orleans MA are you that look good I thought it was annoying they did a really great job we shot we shot all of that in New Orleans on some of the hottest days wearing polyester I was saying we shall overcome polyester okay for the key question yeah what was it like on film to die oh that's so good I'm not taking everywhere but you big characters grow old and it takes you through their life so I'm not sticking and being away from me it's the boiler alert spoiler alert but she did she died she died the day before Obama was elected did you know that oh well it's sort of Solon in the film my mother went to the rally yeah and she had her sign she died November 3rd 2008 she died November 3rd 2008 was that a tough scene uh yeah because you can overdo it dying and you can overdo it being drunk you can really overkill you those of you can really you can you could they told me from the beginning Susan Batson had said people who smoke will know a smoker so you got to train yourself absolutely yeah and people who drink will know a drunk and I guess people who've died will know if you did that well or not so no you can you know most people overdo death you know you can make death so but you think death is gonna be this big dramatic thing and coming to the space I didn't like to die actually I didn't I don't want to die yeah well I actually think death is going to be quite a surprise you know that with that movie on the piano you know when Holly Hunter goes underneath and the piano drags are down the first thing she says ah death what does you don't tell me you you're not looking I'm not looking forward to it but you know I'm really not good we're not gonna get out of it would be honest I'm not afraid of it I just don't want to be there you still ever experience at this elevation racism other than on Twitter when some some nitwit gets on and uses the n-word nobody's gonna do that to my face but I've experienced it I think the higher up you go in the in the chain of capitalism you experience it sexism huge because the expectation for who you are and what you should be doing as a woman and as a black woman you know people you're breaking new ground and so people don't expect you to be sitting at certain board tables people don't expect you to be able to break down certain barriers they don't expect you so I my sentence that I sent you sense it and you know it I had a really interesting incident I didn't I didn't say anything about it because several years ago I was in in France and I had incident at the store there and I you know complained about which which I knew was clearly racism and because it only happened so often where I am directly confronted with it where it's so obviously in your face andre walker over there whose does is my hairdresser and it's done my hair for years he and i years ago this was was a late 90s or something wasn't Andre we had gone to see Serafina and we like Serafina we're going down the street and I tried to get into I went to I saw a sweater in the window this is on Madison Avenue and they wouldn't open the door and they wouldn't open the door and I am not the person who pulls the race card so I am just so like wow gee I wonder what did God do they see us out here so we went across the street this is before cellphones were everywhere remember Andre and we called to say are you open yes we're open okay coming over just cross the street didn't let us in we had seen on the way across the street these these two white women go in the store and suddenly it dawns on the both of us Andre and I was saying that oh my god I think we have an oasis woman and it was I later call back to the store after flying back this is no Madison I've been calling flying back to Chicago and asking the person well you know I was by your store today and I wasn't let in a member and they said that they had been robbed by two black people the week before and they were afraid to open the door and I mean the fact that they actually admitted that was so so striking and I said I was coming in to buy the sweater and they said well we'd like to give you the sweater for free and I go you know keep the sweater whatever just recently I was in Zurich and I was at a store now this was last week I was in Zurich and I had gone there for Tina Turner's wedding and I'd gone out to go shopping and I'm in a store name brand store and I say to the woman and by myself absolutely nobody else with me and I say to the woman I would like to see that bag on the shelf and she says no that one's too expensive I'll show you this wouldn't she did and she proceeded to tell me about the bag and how the bag was created for Jennifer Aniston and it was the other data there and that you should want this one and I say no but I really want to see the black one there the black one which I think it was you know lizard and Lord alligator or something and I'm sure it was expensive and she said no no no no no no no you know what does that make you feel good to see that well I wanted to laugh it I wanted to I wanted to create a pretty woman moment and go and come back and buy everything and say big mistake but then I thought she'd get a commission so let's not do that from where you came yeah how does it feel to have monetarily yeah materialistically everything yeah does it feel how do you have an absence of worry in a key area that most people worry about is the economically hmm you don't think about it I do think about it first of all I live in a space of gratitude and that's just not some rhetoric you know baloney baloney I this morning i every morning I prepare myself for the day so I listen to some form of either spiritual song or I read some kind of spiritual pass age I do I read something called the bowl of sake which is written by a a Sufi master or I'll read a daily word and then I I meditate and I do a gratitude journal and whether I'm doing it electronically or whether I'm you know writing in my little journal that I can I don't carry the journal around if I'm gonna be on longest and in fact vacations because once I left the journal in a hotel and god only knows what you could sell that for so that but I I keep some form I of spiritual practice where I remind myself daily of where I've come from when I look at this film and I think about Jesus III lived that I lived that and only through the grace of God me being born at the right time in 1954 you and I've talked about this before I was born just two years earlier my entire life would have been different I was born during the year Brown versus Board of Education so because of that I never ever sat a day in a segregated school do you know the difference that that made and the way I thought and felt about myself I never had to listen to or be in an environment where a school teacher told me or made me feel in any way inferior just the opposite by the time I went to school my grandmother taught me how to read I learned reading the Bible so by the time I entered school I was I was always the first kid raising my hand it always amazed me to me racism was economically idiotic yeah it was stupid why do I have someone on color yeah - Preet prejudice is to prejudge he has a remains to prejudge yeah why would I prejudge something yeah but I understand you know I understand being a student of the world looking at not just racism in our country and oppression in other countries wherever there is someone who is the superior there's always human nature the feeling of I've got to make myself feel like I'm gonna kick someone I got to kick someone about and so I understand that and part of my role is to bita gate that is to you know in my own way try to open as I said open the spaces of people people's heart so that they can see that we're more likely different but to answer your question it feels sometimes so I'm never not aware of it and sometimes I have to remind myself it was funny in that storm would always say no you can't afford this and finally you know instead of causing a scene you had no idea you know like I just said you know you're probably right you're probably right and I turned and walk out of the store but the truth of the matter is I don't it is a luxury beyond what everybody thinks it is if so I'm not gonna be one of those people say oh you know money doesn't matter it is amazing and I will tell you I remember the exact first time I was in a store trying to decide so I get this plate it was in Tiffany's and I was buying a pattern of dishes and I was saying should I get this one or should I get that one so get this one that one and a friend of mine was with me she said can't you afford both and I went so the idea of being able to have anything you want uh and buy anything you want and not to have that as a worry cuz you don't need this so you asking me but you don't either not how you know no no but it's all relative I mean how much money can you spend my time yeah and after you have the house you want or the houses you want or the car or cars or shoes or whatever the square footage you want and then what so it puts you in a space as you know to think about the broader picture of really why am I here because the goal is no longer just I remember when I was just trying to survive you know when you're writing a check not signing your name I was on relief estate kid hoping that the light that the gasoline cover other quick things his own helping now everything okay I do not see the stories my soror story that's who I'm asking okay what took so long oh my god everybody you know the thing is we're head of schedule because everybody said it was gonna take me five years and I was under the impression that it was going to be as easy as other things have been for example when I started the magazine they said you will not see a profit for the at least the next five years and we were profitable the first month the second month and and and have been since and so I thought okay those predictions end is not really actually I had no idea how difficult it would be however I am really there's an old spiritual that says wouldn't take nothing from a journey now I really was speaking to step in this morning he was saying it's a good thing that she went through that because you were living on the mountaintop for the past 25 years you created this machine of The Oprah Show that it just felt like walking into okay here we go so no struggle no just it has become easy for me to do so to be in a position to build from scratch this network and to go through everybody thinking it was going to fail and there were days when I had doubts myself like I had to force myself to actually practice what I had preached for years about going inside staying with the vision taking having every step moving in the direction of the vision and trusting trusting that building the right team it was difficult for some days and and and you know in between takes of this film I was on the phone with people you know I was planning in between takes of this film on the phone talking to Tyler Perry about coming to own and what that would look like and how we would do that and so forth but it's been you know I wouldn't take nothing for the journey I can send nothing with great admiration for you treasure or all the years we've known each other bumped into each other and I wish you the best of everything and I will tell you you are great in the buff not good great you know thank you so much I just didn't want to embarrass myself so the fact that you're saying that means I surpassed embarrassment right great film thank you [Music] you

Channel: Larry King

Views: 674,591

Keywords: oprah winfrey, the color purple, the color purple (film), oprah winfrey the color purple, oprah winfrey interview, oprah, oprah winfrey network youtube, watching oprah: the oprah winfrey show and american culture, oprah winfrey speech, oprah winfrey network, oprah winfrey (celebrity), the color purple oprah winfrey, oprah winfrey (author), oprah winfrey the butler, oprah winfrey show, the butler

Id: fh4524Lp0aM

Length: 28min 17sec (1697 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2018