Oprah Winfrey is perhaps the biggest draw in Ava DuVernay’s film adaptation of the children’s classic – but behind the scenes it’s the noticeably diverse cast and crew that make this film stand out
On an overcast but humid afternoon in February 2017, on a stage set in Santa Clarita, California, about half an hour outside Los Angeles, Oprah Winfrey and Mindy Kaling are taking a break from making magic. Kaling, just about visible behind her exaggeratedly high collar, and Winfrey – as unrecognisable as Winfrey can be beneath glittery Cruella de Vil-like make-up and a towering hair piece – are playing two of the three witches in the upcoming Disney adaptation of the American children’s classic book, A Wrinkle in Time, written by Madeleine L’Engle, and now directed by Ava DuVernay.
“Most roles I get cast for do not surprise me, and this did,” says Kaling. “I loved the book as a kid, but I always pictured the witches as little old white ladies, right? So this feels almost subversive.” Or as Winfrey later puts it to me, in her unimprovably Oprah-ish way: “I mean, you read the book and you’re expecting Mrs Doubtfire, right? You are not expecting this,” she hoots, waggling her finger towards her impressive cleavage.
I am going to come clean here and say I am unprofessionally excited about this set visit. A Wrinkle in Time is little known in the UK, but in the US it is as much a part of the childhood canon as The Wind in the Willows is in Britain, and, like millions of American kids, I was raised on its sparklingly original mix of science, fantasy and spirited youthful feminism. Imagine the magic of Harry Potter mixed with the familial themes of Star Wars, the political undercurrrents of Nineteen Eighty-Four and the epic imaginative sweep of The Wizard of Oz, and you are getting there. At its simplest, it is the story of a little girl, Meg Murry, who, along with her younger brother, Charles Wallace, and friend, Calvin, are whisked away by a trio of witches, Mrs Who, Mrs Whatsit and Mrs Which, through space and time, to find her scientist father, who has been trapped by the Black Thing.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
