Fantasia Barrino

SOMETIMES A PERFORMANCE COMES ALONG WHERE WHEN YOU WATCH it, you just can't imagine anyone else playing that role.

- H. Alan Scott

That's what Fantasia Barrino has done in The Color Purple (December 25). "I do believe that I am Celie. Celie is me." In the adaptation of the Broadway musical based on the 1985 film and novel by Alice Walker, Barrino makes her big-screen debut. She says this moment feels "like a dream come true. I still pinch myself because I can't believe it's happening." While the film is a bold depiction of the horrors many Black women suffered, Barrino feels the story is universal. "This is not just a Black thing. This is a world thing. Everybody who watches this movie can relate to something" and that Celie's story "is going to break so many curses off women and men, young and old, white and Black." The road to this moment wasn't easy for Barrino, who faced many personal and financial setbacks since she won