Brooks starred in both the 2015 revival and 2023 film adaptation of ‘The Color Purple,’ which Winfrey produced

NEED TO KNOW

• Danielle Brooks said working on the 2015 stage version and 2023 film adaptation of The Color Purple led to a years-long mentorship with Oprah Winfrey, who produced both projects
• Brooks also shared one of the best lessons the media mogul ever taught her
• The pair are now developing an Apple TV+ comedy together

Danielle Brooks shared some of the best advice she ever received from Oprah Winfrey.

Brooks, 36, starred as Sofia in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple, as well as the most recent 2023 film adaptation — both of which were co-produced by Winfrey (Winfrey, 72, played the role of Sofia in the 1985 film version directed by Steven Spielberg).

While speaking to PEOPLE exclusively during the Broadway premiere of School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play in New York City on Sept. 28, Brooks shared that her work in The Color Purple led to an unexpected mentorship from the media titan, whom she says has taught her “so many things” over the years.

“I think she’s somebody that walks the walk and talks the talk,” Brooks tells PEOPLE of Winfrey.

“Be about how you really want to be. Stand on your business,” she continues. “And she’s always said what Maya Angelo says: ‘You stand as one, but come as 10,000.’ ”

“[And] I think that’s just something I feel tonight,” Brooks said of the Broadway play, which tells the story of students at an all-girls’ boarding school in Ghana in 1986. “There’s so many Black women [who] I stand on their shoulders, and they stand on mine. And so I just feel like that’s what it’s about.”

The Orange Is the New Black alum added that she and Winfrey will also be working together on the upcoming Apple TV+ comedy series American Comfort, inspired by the life of Harlem restaurateur Melba Wilson.

“We’re developing with Apple TV. So that’s going to be fun to watch. Hopefully, we’ll shoot it here in Harlem,” she says, adding that working with Winfrey has been “great.”

“I love her so much … Color Purple’s been the gift that just keeps on giving,” she adds.

Brooks earned a Tony nomination for her work in the show’s 2015 Broadway revival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the movie-musical adaptation. 

Winfrey, meanwhile, has said that starring in the 1985 film version, which was based on the novel of the same name by Alice Walker, changed the course of her life.

“Doing the [original] film was the most important thing that had ever happened to me and continues to be a central theme in my life,” she told PEOPLE in 2023.

She went on to say that the movie “is the reason I ended up owning my own show, why I learned to surrender, do the hardest work and then let that work go.”

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“The Color Purple is why I created the culture at my company Harpo that I did, because I had seen at Steven Spielberg’s [production company] Amblin that you can own your own studio [and] make a family of your work,” she continued. “That movie was a spiritual grounding for me.”

The film was nominated for 11 total Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Whoopi Goldberg.

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