Oprah Winfrey on Turning 70, Gratitude and How 'The Color Purple' "Changed Everything" | People

I have always felt like there was a calling on my life and I responded to the call I obeyed the call I listened and the reason why 70 feels so solid and feels so good is because I didn't have to harm anybody in the process not Al not only did not not not harm I actually brought a lot of joy to people when I was a little kid living on a dirt road in Mississippi a red dirt road as a matter of fact I was the one that was always playing the teacher and I would be I I was I was the teacher and if we were playing house I was the mother even if I were was the younger girl I would have to be the mother over everybody else so some people call that bossy I just call it well I I know better so I should be the one I should be the teacher cuz I'm the one that knows and so I would have to say that teaching is my first love it is my first love and the thing that still Delights and brings me the greatest level of satisfaction is having a conversation and in the middle of the conversation someone discover something or hear something and says or thinks oh I never thought of it that way before I love that experience for myself I love to be reading something or talking to somebody and hear something and suddenly wow that's a new way of thinking about it I I hadn't thought of that before and I have to tell you on the Oprah show when people actually said that out loud I would just go cuz that's the best thing that could happen like that is what enlightenment is you present an idea in such a way that somebody goes H I hadn't thought of it that way before I now know that what Maya Angelo told me when I came back from my school when I went to her house because she wasn't able to come to the the opening and I was like Oh Maya this is just going to be the greatest this this school is going to be my greatest Legacy and she said you have no idea what your legacy is going to be I said oh no I think this school is really going to be it's it these girls and she said I said you have no idea what your legacy is going to be because your legacy is never one thing your legacy is every life you've touched every life you've touched and then she went on to say it's everybody who ever watched a show and decided because of that show and something you said I'm going to go back to school I'm going to leave my abusive husband I'm going to stop hitting my child I'm going to get a better bra I'm going to work out more I'm going to go check my blood pressure I'm going to check on my father who I haven't talked to for years I'm going to forgive my brother I'm going to it's every life you've touched and so when I think about that I think about the number of millions of people literally millions of people who watch the show and heard something felt something were moved by something that opened up the aperture of Hope of possibility of Yearning of Consciousness just even a little bit that's a life that I touched and you just can't get any better than that I've done multiple interviews over the years so I sound like a some kind of broken record r gratitude but it really is my religion it is the thing that I base my everything on is I when I wake up in the morning it's the first thing I think I train myself to say thank you first before you start with what am I going to do what even this morning in the hotel I was like H what the noise outside is thank you you go to thank you first you start your day with thank you and I end my day with thank you and that spir that is my spirit spiritual practice that is my deepest greatest spiritual practice and training training myself to do that and if you train yourself to do that you walk through life feeling the abundance instead of the scarcity and I get to think about this every day because I live in mono which is about as far from rural Mississippi as Mars is from here I mean physically emotionally spiritually dynamically just what happened on that dirt road in Mississippi versus where my life is now feels like an impossibility and now that particularly that it's been 12 years since the Oprah show there's a whole generation of people who only know me through memes and through what they've heard or their parents have heard or grandparents have heard cuz what I hear all the time is my mother loves you my mother my mother loves you which is great great great great great for me but what I I realize is is that being able to stand solidly in the maturity of my own spiritual growth has been the thing that has brought me to this to this point oh my life I had to fight I had to fight my daddy I had to fight my uncles I had to fight my brothers The Color Purple changed my life in all the ways it was a miracle that I got the role it was just a miracle because I didn't it's it's as big as Miracle as my whole life has been because I didn't know one single soul in the business I didn't know a human being in Hollywood and I started telling people I'm going to get in that movie and I thought was going to be uh I I I didn't know what what even a movie set was like I'd never been to a movie set so I was like somebody's got to hold the script somebody's got to bring them water somebody's got to do that and I remember looking at the uh scrolling down when you're watching the films at the credits at the end of the movies there was something called a best boy y'all know what that is there was best boy and I was like that's the last credit was best boy and I was like I'm going to convince them I could be your best girl whatever that is well I couldn't do that cuz that's like electrician I couldn't do that but anyway um I just was like praying every night praying every night I carried the book on my I had a backpack that I would walk from Wacker Drive where AM Chicago was done and I'd carry books of The Color Purple in my backpack and I would walk home just so I could give out the books to people this was long before was book club okay but I wanted people to read that book and I just be passing out the book and cuz when I like a thing I like a thing okay and I believe life is better when you share it whether that's a candy bar when I was a kid or whether it's sharing books what so I wanted everybody to read this book i' given it away to everybody in my office and now I've run out of people so I would just go on the street and I just hand out the book and then I started praying that I would somehow be able to get in this movie and I get a call I get a call from Ruben Cannon who says Quincy Jones was in town in Chicago for a lawsuit that he had to do a deposition for a lawsuit against Michael Jackson was for the song Billy Jean that he had produced and he had taken a red eye into town and as he was getting dressed for the deposition in his hotel room had come in 6:00 in the morning shower and there I was live on TV and he saw me you tell me that ain't a and so Quincy Jones sees me he calls and says I think there's this girl here you need to you need to see would you like to work for me see my ma hell no I thought I don't want to just have a job I don't just want to be going to work every day I want to feel like this I want to feel energized I want to feel stimulated I want to feel like I want to get up in the morning because I went to set even when I did didn't have to work just that being around all of that Creative Energy so I built Harpo Studios based on the energy that I felt going on there the whole culture of Harpo was built on we're a family we're working together to do something that's really meaningful and creative and inspired for people seeing Steph Spielberg have his own studio amblin is what gave me the idea that I could do it for myself myself I had no idea you could even do that I didn't even know there was such a thing and then I was like this is yours like you own it what does that mean you own it and down to the dove bars just seeing people coming in that room and creating an environment where the staff and the crew and everybody was just like one and everybody working together on one thing that changed me so when I say that the call Color Purple had an impact on my life and that this the reason why I'm wearing purple is because it is a solidifying and glorifying touch point in my life it's time I be free from you and then turn to Creation I'd die before I let that happen good that's just a going away pres I've been needing oh I think what we're saying about this version Fantasia has said it many times you will be healed when you go to this movie you you will be healed I don't know whatever needs healing will get healed the joyfulness of it the spirit of um forgiveness the sense of hope the sense of you know no matter how oppressed or challenged you are that there is life in the imagination and what we see in this version that you didn't see in um Spielberg's version which I still love the original obviously um is that we get inside cel's head and so for me to be able to have this moment I just feel so blessed and rewarded that I get to see it because it has meant so so much to me and I know the power of um I don't know what was going on when Alice wrote this thing but I know the power that it holds from the book to the Stevens version of the film The Original and two major Broadway shows in 2005 and then again in 2015 there's something going on with energetically with that color purple and I know that for anybody who's involved with it if you open yourself up to it it changes you one of the greatest highlights of my life is that color purple experience back in ' 85 and now to to be blessed enough to have lived to have come full circle to see it again uh to be able to literally pass it on to pass it on to another generation is is just the greatest reward

Channel: People

Views: 278,307

Keywords: oprah, oprah winfrey, oprah winfrey interview, oprah winfrey turning 70, oprah 70 year old woman, oprah 2023, oprah people magazine, people magazine, oprah winfrey speech, oprah winfrey show, oprah winfrey weight loss, oprah weight loss 2023, oprah weight loss interview, oprah winfrey weight loss 2023

Id: 5GBthHX8XMs

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 13 2023