Danielle Brooks is drawing warm early notices for her new movie “If I Go Will They Miss Me.” Speaking with CBS, the Emmy- and Tony-nominated performer said that motherhood and marriage directly shaped how she approached the role, giving the performance a lived-in emotional weight.
Brooks has built one of the more acclaimed careers of her generation. Juilliard-trained, she broke through as Taystee in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, then earned a Tony nomination for her turn as Sofia in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple — a role she reprised in the 2023 film adaptation, which brought her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Her work on The Color Purple also brought a Grammy Award for the Broadway cast recording, underscoring a versatility that spans musical theatre, prestige television and film. That range has made her a reliable awards-season presence and one of the most sought-after character actors of her cohort.
Beyond those milestones she has become a familiar face in the comic-book world as Leota Adebayo in HBO’s Peacemaker, showing the same warmth and comic timing that defined her earlier work. She is expected to remain part of the rebooted DC screen universe as it expands, keeping her in front of a mainstream audience even as she pursues awards-caliber film roles.
Colleagues have often pointed to her stage discipline — honed at Juilliard and on Broadway — as the foundation for the emotional precision she brings to the screen. Off screen she has been candid about balancing motherhood with a demanding career, a theme she returned to in the CBS conversation about her latest role.
With “If I Go Will They Miss Me,” Brooks described the film as a personal milestone. She credited her family life with grounding the character and said the project arrived at exactly the right moment in her career, adding another substantial dramatic role to a fast-growing body of work.
