Oprah channeled Maya Angelou and Glinda the Good Witch for her "A Wrinkle in Time" role
In the highly-anticipated new movie "A Wrinkle in Time," Oprah Winfrey stars as one of three celestial beings who help the movie's main character, Meg, travel through time to rescue her missing father. Collectively, the three, portrayed by Winfrey, Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon, are known as "the Mrs." As Mrs. Which, the wisest of the three, Winfrey channeled another kind of witch – Glinda the Good Witch from "The Wizard of Oz" – as well as her own mentor, Maya Angelou.
"I could hear Maya in my head the whole time, every time I spoke, and of Glinda," Winfrey told "CBS This Morning."
She called "The Wizard of Oz" not only her "favorite movie of all time" but also one of her favorite "spiritual enlightenment teachings."
Winfrey is also channeling herself in a way. She likened the message of one of her character's lines – "All you have to do is find the right frequency and have faith in who you are" – to the wisdom she shares with girls she mentors.
"Many, many times when I'm counseling my own girls, you know, from my school in South Africa, I'll say, you got to find your flow. It's a way of speaking to them about being who you are, finding your flow, staying in your lane, not worrying about what the other person is doing. So, when Mrs. Which says just finding your frequency and having faith in who you are, that's kind of coming from a natural place," she said.
"A Wrinkle in Time" is directed by Ava DuVernay and based on the bestselling 1962 novel of the same name by Madeleine L'Engle. It was DuVernay who decided to cast a black child for the main character.
"It was her call to put a little brown girl at the center of it, Storm Reid, and also to diversify the Mrs.," she said. "Those of you grew up with the book, the Mrs. don't look like me or Mindy or Reese for that matter. I think, you know, Ava's whole work on the planet is about inclusion."
The universal theme of finding one's voice and path is a message that speaks directly to Winfrey, who's been vocal about her own abusive childhood.
"I've had a lot to overcome. I think the most important, essential thing to understand about all of us, the thread that runs through all of us, is what Meg says at the end of the movie: 'I deserve to be loved,'" she said. "I think people are – they suffer in direct proportion to how they don't believe that they deserve to be loved. So it all comes back to how loved are you, and do you believe that you're worthy of being loved."