It’s a very good time to be Danielle Brooks.
She obtained an Oscar nomination for “The Shade Purple” in 2024 — her efficiency as Sofia additionally earned her a Grammy for finest musical theater album — however Brooks has arguably had a good higher 2025. Thus far this 12 months, she has starred within the practically billion-dollar-grossing blockbuster hit “A Minecraft Film” and voiced a villainous snow leopard in “The Unhealthy Guys 2.” Now, together with co-star John Cena, Brooks is headed again into the DC Universe for Season 2 of HBO Max’s “Peacemaker.”
Recent off shepherding a model new imaginative and prescient for the DCU with David Corenswet’s guileless tackle “Superman,” James Gunn has devised this season of “Peacemaker,” premiering Aug. 21, as a option to bridge what’s come earlier than with what’s forward. If there’s a theme to the newest journey of this goofy, earnest and foul-mouthed superhero it’s that there is no such thing as a operating away from one’s decisions — for higher and for worse.
The titular antihero-turned-superhero is joined on his journey by Leota Adebayo (Brooks), as good a hype good friend as Cena’s Peacemaker may have dreamed of discovering. Different famed metahumans could make enjoyable of his disco ball of a helmet and he could battle with how finest to show his fame round, however Adebayo is agency in her perception within the goodness of her often-bumbling muscled good friend.
Days earlier than heading right down to San Diego for her first Comedian-Con, Brooks sat down to speak and take inventory of her journey right into a world she as soon as knew little or no about.
“I grew up in a really reserved dwelling. And so we weren’t uncovered to a number of issues. I didn’t have an older brother or a cousin. No one was handing me comedian books — any individual was handing me a Bible or a sheet of music to sing,” she explains with a smile.
However that wasn’t the one factor that made this DCU challenge daunting when it first got here her method.
Peacemaker (John Cena) and Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) in Season 2 of HBO Max’s “Peacemaker.”
(Curtis Bonds Baker/HBO Max)
“After I got here throughout Adebayo, I simply had my daughter, and we had been in a pandemic,” she says. “I had simply gained like 60 kilos from my being pregnant. After which I get a name from James Gunn saying, ‘Hey, you wish to be on this motion TV present?’ And I’m like, ‘What? I’m within the worst form of my life. Sure, I can nonetheless act, however can I run?’”
Gunn had seen Brooks in “Orange Is the New Black” and had been impressed along with her soulful and humorous breakthrough efficiency as Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson, one of many inmates in Jenji Kohan’s long-running Netflix hit.
“The depth was unimaginable,” he says in an e-mail. “I assumed it was a chance to place somebody distinctive on the middle of a ‘superhero’ present.”
Like most of the characters in Gunn’s off-kilter sequence that could be a spinoff of 2021’s “The Suicide Squad,” Adebayo first arrived in Peacemaker’s life combating who she was and what she may stand for. Overshadowed by the towering fame of her mom — Viola Davis’ no-nonsense Amanda Waller — the fresh-faced A.R.G.U.S. recruit initially couldn’t shake off the insecurity that adopted her each transfer.
“Once you first meet Adebayo in Season 1, she’s so flustered,” Brooks explains. “She’s so everywhere. She will be able to’t discover her footing for something. She’s stumbling over her phrases. She gained’t even shoot anybody.”
Adebayo’s journey mirrors Brooks’ personal. The actor initially approached this challenge with trepidation much like her character.
“I got here in with a number of worry,” she says. “Can I give him [Gunn] what he wants?” She knew Gunn trusted her items, and her need to ship a powerful efficiency ultimately helped drive her character work.
“I got here in with a number of worry,” says Danielle Brooks about becoming a member of the DC Universe sequence “Peacemaker” after James Gunn forged her. “Can I give him what he wants?”
(Bexx Francois / For The Occasions)
“That’s part of what I really like about what we do,” she says about appearing. “It challenges you to be your finest in each side — mentally, spiritually, bodily. And so I used to be actually excited to tackle that problem.”
Simply as Adebayo discovered her place throughout the eleventh Avenue Children — which embody Peacemaker, Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee) — Brooks blossomed amid this tight-knit motley crew.
“She’s such a giant character,” Gunn says. “And this workforce specifically extra so than any is an actual household. It wouldn’t be the identical with out Danielle’s huge chuckle and her huge coronary heart.”
That huge coronary heart has formed Adebayo right into a grounding presence for these round her.
“That has develop into her superpower,” Brooks says, “serving to floor this group and saying, ‘Hey, we will do that!’ That’s the place we meet her in Season 2. She’s so optimistic. They’re all ‘misplaced within the sauce’ is one of the best ways I understand how to explain it. They’re looking for their footing relating to their relationships, their private lives, their jobs — all people’s everywhere. However she’s the one individual that’s like, ‘No, we’re gonna determine this out.’”
Although “Peacemaker” relishes raunchy punchlines and gag-inducing gags — the present options aliens, bar brawls, orgies and Eagly, a prickly pet eagle — it has been an appearing showcase for its lead forged.
Danielle Brooks on Leota Adebayo’s optimism: “That has develop into her superpower, serving to floor this group and saying, ‘Hey, we will do that!’”
(Jessica Miglio / HBO Max)
Brooks is worked up for followers to see what Cena will get to do that time round. (“I really feel like he leveled up this season,” she says.) However Gunn says it’s Adebayo’s arc that’ll blow viewers away on this multiverse-focused second season.
“This entire forged is able to a lot extra depth than I gave them first season,” he says. “And Danielle’s work within the Season 2 finale is a number of the finest appearing work I’ve ever been part of.”
That go with could have quelled the preliminary fears Brooks had when she was getting ready to revisit the character.
“With Season 2, it took me a bit of second to get again within the rhythm,” she says. “I additionally had the stress now of being Oscar nominated. Like, ‘Oh man, that is the subsequent factor you’re doing after your nomination? Are you actually that gifted? Do you bought it?’”
She knew higher than to provide in to such intrusive ideas. Nevertheless it highlighted a brand new set of challenges she’s going through as she begins shaping the subsequent chapter in her profession.
“You do get a confidence increase of, I do belong right here,” she says. “I positively really feel that. As a result of after I consider the actors which might be nominated, they’re one of the best within the recreation. So it’s helped me to face agency: I’m not going wherever on this business. I’m going to have longevity. And I knew that with no nomination.”
That latter sentiment was what Brooks selected to spotlight earlier this 12 months along with her followers and colleagues alike on Tony nomination day. The actor, who’s a Tony nominee for the 2016 Broadway run of “The Shade Purple,” shared a video to social media directed at those that might need felt they’d little to rejoice.
It included footage of Brooks in 2023 studying she’d missed out on a nomination for her work on “The Piano Lesson” after which a warmhearted pep speak the place she shared what she had taken away from that have: “Let this mild a hearth to proceed to convey good work the place it’s simply simple,” she says. “And never only for the awards, however for your self and the targets that you’ve in life.”
It was a easy message born out of a need to shine a light-weight on how metrics for fulfillment throughout the business can depart actors with a warped sense of their very own worth.
“That was a extremely exhausting time,” she admits. “And it wasn’t solely as a result of I didn’t get Tony nominated. That stung, nevertheless it wasn’t the one cause. It was some extent in my life that I used to be like, ‘Why am I doing this?’ I used to be beginning to not be blissful within the factor that I really like a lot. And if I really feel that method, I don’t know if it’s value it, you already know?”
That second she captured on digital camera was a deflating disappointment. Nevertheless it was additionally adopted by a loving gesture: Within the video, her husband Dennis Gelin seems from behind and offers her a kiss on the highest of her head. Whilst she processed her skilled loss, Brooks was being taken care of by those that love her.
“I believe a number of instances we hype up all people once they’re on that mountain,” she says. It’s simple to rejoice fellow artists when they’re doing effectively or seem like — once they appear to be “using within the solar,” as she places it.
Danielle Brooks, who stars within the HBO Max sequence “Peacemaker” Season 2 in Los Angeles, CA on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
(Bexx Francois / For The Occasions)
“You understand, like once they’ve acquired their sun shades on they usually’re in bikes and it seems like they’ve acquired baggage of cash hanging out,” she jokes. “That’s after we rejoice and we put all these hearts and people likes on them.
“However what about when you’re not there? Once you’re simply feeling such as you’re sinking within the mud and also you’re reaching out, and no one’s there to carry your hand?” she provides. “That’s what I wished for the folks that weren’t nominated that day: to know that there’s a hand on the opposite aspect to shake and say, ‘You continue to are unimaginable. You continue to deserve the world.’”
They’re the sort of phrases that sum up the heat and ebullience Brooks has infused into characters like Taystee in “Orange,” Sofia in “The Shade Purple” and now Leota Adebayo. These ladies orbit round the concept that you need to tackle the world not with a closed fist however with an open coronary heart.
As we wrap up our dialog, a lady approaches Brooks in hopes of introducing her little ladies to the actor. Brooks beams their method and giddily poses with them for photos. Whereas her position in “Minecraft” should be prime of thoughts for most individuals, the joy of seeing Brooks on a random morning at a Beverly Hills resort had extra to do with an unlikely challenge of hers: Netflix’s renovation present, “On the spot Dream Dwelling.”
It’s one other instance of how Brooks’ attraction and pursuits proceed to set her on a path the place each new challenge introduces her to wildly totally different audiences. And he or she wouldn’t have it another method.
“Life’s too quick,” she says. “I wish to know the entire items which were given to me. I’ve all the time wished to form my profession that method the place you simply contact all people, simply totally different individuals who have totally different walks of life than you. That’s the strongest factor you might ever do.”
