As was recently announced, she's also been chatting with Broadway producers about starring in future stage projects. So yes, expect to see Oprah Winfrey in something sometime soon, whether on stage, or on screen – and I'm not talking about another talk show – now that, as she says, she now has more flexibility, given that she no longer hosts her previous hit talk show. Although, I figured she'd be buried in building her new network OWN, and wouldn't have any time at all for anything else… certainly not right now, given that the network is struggling in its inaugural year.
"For years, I couldn't do it…," Winfrey told Variety yesterday; "… If a film comes along that I feel really speaks to me, I would do it… I am the most relaxed I have ever been in my life doing a film because it's the only real vacation I get (and) I no longer have to be myself… I just love the opportunity to submerge into somebody else's life and not to have to deal with my own for a while," Oprah said further.
The Variety piece went on to mention that Oprah says she's "talking to helmers Tyler Perry, Lee Daniels and [Jonathan] Demme about potential roles." No Spike Lee? 🙂
No word on what roles specifically, nor in what future projects by each director. But take heed… don't be shocked to hear Oprah's name attached to upcoming projects by any of them.
If I remember correctly, she was once up for a role in Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls, when the project was first announced in 2009.
It's been just about 13 years years since she last appeared on screen in a film – Jonathan Demme's Beloved in 1998; an $80 million, near-3-hour film that failed at the box office, making just over $22 million, much to Oprah's chagrin; an occurence that, as she later said, really did a number on her. Nothing like putting your heart, soul, time (10 years) and money into a project, expecting it to be embraced, only to see it summarily rejected. But really, 3-hour dramas, set shortly after the Civil War, centered on black people, even those based on Pulitzer prize-winning novels by prominent authors, are tough sells. Lesson learned.
I doubt she'll be visiting that territory again. But ya never know.
Let's see what she cooks up with Perry, Daniels, or Demme.
