On a recent episode of The View, where Laurence Fishburne appeared as a guest, the duo looked back on what it was like to work together on Steven Spielberg's 1985 film, based on the novel by Alice Walker, which also starred Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover and Margaret Avery.

“I remember being elated that Whoopi got the lead,” Fishburn, 63, who played Swain, said of costar Goldberg, 69, who played lead character Celie in the film and was nominated for an Oscar for her work.

“I remember that ...The Color Purple was so popular at that time, and Whoopi had just come off of her one-man show, and suddenly she was going back to work with Spielberg and all that stuff," he continued.

Then, recalling a story about how Goldberg landed the part in the film, Fishburne said, “She wrote something, she said, ‘I will play dirt on the floor.' "

At that point, Goldberg chimed in and confirmed, “I wrote that in a letter to Alice Walker,” referring to the author, who was also the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Goldberg also recalled how she first learned ofThe Color Purple, and detailed the passion she felt when reading the story that led her to want to contribute to the film adaptation.