Jon Batiste Joins ‘The Color Purple’ Movie Cast
Just after dominating the Grammy Awards with five wins, which includes album of the calendar year, Jon Batiste is set to conquer a new medium — acting. The musician has joined the solid of “The Coloration Purple,” directed by Blitz Bazawule, for his attribute performing debut.
Batiste is established to portray Grady, spouse to Shug Avery (performed by Taraji P. Henson). The debonair, sweet-talking piano male is explained as “the epitome of appeal and eloquence.”
He joins a star-studded cast led by Fantasia Barrino (in her possess element film debut) as Celie, a Black girl whose individual awakening in the American South of the early 20th century is at the center of this epic story. The full ensemble features Danielle Brooks as Sofia, Henson as Shug Avery, Colman Domingo as Mister, Corey Hawkins as Harpo, H.E.R. as Squeak, Halle Bailey as Young Nettie, Ciara as Nettie, Elizabeth Marvel as Skip Millie, David Alan Grier as Reverend Avery, Tamala J. Mann as 1st Girl, Phylicia Pearl Mpasi as Younger Celie, Deon Cole as Alfonso, Stephen Hill as Buster, Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr. as Ol’ Mister and recent Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis as Mama, mother to Celie and Nettie.
The forthcoming Warner Bros. musical film is an adaptation of Alice Walker’s iconic American novel, as well as the Oscar-nominated 1985 movie from Steven Spielberg and Tony Award-profitable Broadway musical that it impressed. Oprah Winfrey, who made her element performing debut in that motion picture, is developing the new undertaking less than her Harpo Films banner Spielberg also returns to deliver for his Amblin Enjoyment. Scott Sanders and Quincy Jones, both of whom developed the Broadway musical, are also producers. Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker, Mara Jacobs, Carla Gardini, Kristie Macosko Krieger and Adam Fell are government producers.
Batiste is probably most effective recognised as the bandleader and musical director of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS, where he’s served considering the fact that 2015. Despite this marking his initial film job, Batiste is currently an Oscar winner. In 2020, Batiste gained the finest first rating prize for Disney-Pixar’s “Soul,” an honor he shared with fellow composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. In carrying out so, Batiste grew to become the 2nd Black composer in heritage, soon after famous jazz musician Herbie Hancock, to gain an Academy Award in that category.
Outside the realm of movie and tv, the New Orleans-born musician nabbed his initial Grammy nomination (for most effective American Roots effectiveness) in 2018, adopted by two much more in 2020 for albums he self-created, “Chronology of a Desire: Are living at the Village Vanguard” and “Meditations” (with Cory Wong). His 2021 studio album “We Are” was produced to mind-boggling important acclaim, contributing intensely to Batiste’s enormous tally of 11 Grammy nominations throughout seven classes. Next his five Grammy wins and rousing effectiveness in the course of the telecast, Batiste’s music appreciated a 950% increase in streaming. Batiste is represented by CAA and attorneys Dan Shulman and Evan Krauss at Eisner, LLP.