"Everything that I've learned, any pain I've been through, any joy I've been through, I think I rehashed it all in order to play this role, " said Winfrey's co-star, the actress Thandie Newton.
The purpose, he says, is to evoke joythrough spectacular beauty, a feat he intends to achieve by painting the 410, 000 barrels, producing a three-dimensional mosaic of red and blue and yellow in the desert 100 miles outside Abu Dhabi City.