Lunch Break Video: Oprah in “The Color Purple”

It’s difficult to imagine Oprah Winfrey as anybody other than Oprah these days.

But there was a time, when her talk show was in its early days and she didn’t have her own magazine, school in Africa, book club and all the rest, that Oprah was an Academy Award nominated actress.

The role was the strong-willed Sofia in 1985’s The Color Purple and Oprah absolutely nailed it as you can see in these two scenes.

Although she is a terrific actress, Oprah rarely took on any after that with her most notable acting forays being the miniseries Women of Brewster Place, the TV movies There Are No Children Here and Before Women Had Wings and the 1998 feature film Beloved.