Oprah Winfrey Headed to Broadway?
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Discovery Communications, Inc.(NEW YORK) — She’s the most iconic TV talk-show host of all time, been nominated for an Oscar and even started her own eponymous television network. So what else do you do when you are Oprah Winfrey?
“My dream is to do Broadway,” Winfrey said Thursday on ABC’s Good Morning America. “That is going to happen.”
Winfrey, 58, made her Broadway dreams known while sitting right in the heart of “The Great White Way,” inside the Times Square studio of GMA, where she appeared as a special guest on the No. 1-rated morning show.
Winfrey’s stop at GMA came amid a busy fall for the talk-show legend who has not slowed down since ending her 25-year reign at the top of TV May 2011. Most recently, Winfrey has put her focus on the television network she founded, OWN, that stumbled in ratings at its launch, despite a much-anticipated debut.
“You know what the problem was? I wasn’t there,” Winfrey said Thursday morning. “I wasn’t surrounded by all of the people who I was accustomed to working with.”
Winfrey says moving her longtime HARPO and talk-show executives to OWN and spending more time at the office herself has helped to turn things around.
“There were a couple of days back in the spring and early on that I asked myself, ‘What have I done,’ because I expected that it would be a lot easier,” she said. “I expected that I would be able to go into the office every day or so. I expected that I would just call up people and do an interview when I wanted. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I think we’re in the full turn now,” she said. “For the past nine months, we’ve shown amazing growth and some really great shows. We’re getting traction.”
As for her acting aspirations, Winfrey’s next stop on her path to the stage is a new movie directed by Lee Daniels about a White House butler who served eight U.S. presidents. The Butler, in theaters next year, has Oprah starring alongside acting greats such as Robin Williams, Vanessa Redgrave and John Cusack, and taking part in some much-buzzed-about sex scenes with actor Forest Whitaker.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio