LOS ANGELES?In our latest encounter with Oprah Winfrey, she was, as usual, larger than life, given to expansive gestures. She draws us in with her booming voice, warm nature and easy humor that invite instant camaraderie. She?s given to saying, ?That?s a very good question.?

The shtick does not feel fake nor forced. The woman appears to genuinely love talking to and being around people. ?This is like therapy,? she said with an appreciative laughter after expounding on how people learn to love themselves if they didn?t grow up with love.

She inspires such questions on pop psychology and feel good affirmation even when she?s away from her popular TV talk show set. In this instance, she was in a Toronto hotel room for a press con. And the questions were appropriate to the film she was promoting, ?Precious: Based on the Novel ?Push? by Sapphire,? about a girl who overcomes crushing abuse.

She co-produced the film which eventually won the People?s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. ?Precious,? directed by Lee Daniels and featuring ace performances from comedian Mo?Nique, newcomer Gabourey Sidibe (in the title role), Paula Patton and Mariah Carey, is now considered a front-runner in the coming awards season. In an earlier column, we wrote about Oprah?s answer when we asked her about Filipina singer Charice. Today, as promised, we feature more excerpts from that interview.

How did you get involved with ?Precious??

Lee Daniels sent me a copy of this film several months before Sundance. I was carrying the film literally around in my bag. When I went to Africa, I was going to play it on the plane. But the DVD wouldn?t play in the machine on the plane. Figures (laughter), you know. So I still had the DVD in my bag. It was one of those things?when was I going to see the film? Tyler Perry asked me if I?ve seen the film. I said, ?I think I have that film. I?ve been meaning to watch it.?

I found a DVD player that worked, played the film and afterward, the first thing I did was call Tyler. I was like gasping for breath. I said, ?Do you know how I could get in touch with, number one, Mo?Nique?? Tyler, who has the hookup to everything (laughter) said, ?I have Mo?Nique?s number.? I said, ?Number two, I need to speak to the director of this film because I wanted to say, ?Bravo, great job! What can I do to help you? How do we market this film? Let me get involved.? That?s how I became involved.

Why did you want to call Mo?Nique?

I wanted to call Mo?Nique because of her phenomenal performance. I don?t think we?ve seen a performance like that. You can tell in the last scene that she goes to another zone, that place where every actor wishes he could go to in all the scenes. When Mo?Nique goes to another zone where something happens, it felt like it was coming from such a raw, earthy place. I don?t think a lot of that was scripted. A lot of that was just ad-libbed. I would have loved to play that role but I don?t think anybody could have done a better job than Mo?Nique.

Mariah Carey shines even in her small role.

Lee wanted to strip all of the ?Mariah?-ness from her. He did a really great job on that. He said that included having Mariah sometimes coming to work in a cab. I am not sure how you get Mariah to come to work in a cab (laughter), instead of a limousine service and with the entourage. That?s solely the work of the director and her willingness to go there. What I loved about Mariah?s final scene?remember that moment where she turns and flicks a tear because the character is not supposed to be crying? It works because as the character, she is not supposed to be crying. It was such an emotional scene. Mariah did a really great job.

If you don?t grow up with love, as experienced by Precious in the film, how do you learn to love yourself?

That is why we have the world we do because so many people are still trying to find their way. The reason why so many young people are enraged is because nobody ever loved them. In a classroom that employs the Each One Teach One strategy?there are many varieties of those kinds of schools and classes throughout many communities? you sit in the classroom with these kids who have never really been touched, nurtured, loved or supported. They are just raging. When you offer them love and kindness and you show them that you can be trusted, that you are not phony but that you are there for them which I?ve done?I?ve spoken to classes like that?it?s really hard to break that wall first. Because the reason why people walk around so enraged and angry is because they have to protect themselves.

If you?re at home and nobody loves you, you certainly can?t expect the world to give it to you. That?s why this movie is going to be so enlightening on so many levels because you understand then when you see a person on the street, you think this is just an angry person. But he has a back story. The anger is just really a façade for the pain.

Please complete: You are precious because?

In spite of all the amazing things that happened to me, I am still in wonder of my own life sometimes. I wake up and open my eyes like, ?How did this happen to me?? I actually know how it happened to me but in spite of all that, my feet are solidly on the ground. I?m just wearing better shoes (laughter). I?m really proud of myself.

What I realized with Michael Jackson when I interviewed him in 1993 was that the adage that goes ?It?s lonely at the top? is really true. What I felt was a sense of loneliness from him. I was so excited and we were all so happy to be there, eating all the Neverland candy till we made ourselves sick. But I thought, gosh, he?s lonely and he didn?t have anybody around him who was willing to tell him the truth. And the truth of the matter is, when you have that kind of access to the world and that kind of money, people treat you differently. It?s just a fact. You need to be surrounded by really true people.

You need to be around somebody who pulls you up and can tell you the truth about a lot of things like, ?You?re spending too much money? or ?Don?t spend your money on that? or ?Settle down.? You need people to tell you the truth. I feel very blessed that I hear that from really close friends. Just last night, somebody said, ?Can I call you because this (handling fame) is really hard?? I said, ?Yeah, call me any time.? Because when I started, I called Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier, Maya Angelou and Bill Cosby? those were the people who helped me navigate this whole how-do-you-handle-the-fame thing, the money thing and how do you balance that.

What are you like as a boss?

I don?t whip people (laughter). I think I?m a very lenient boss. When you?re running a business, you need to let go people who need to be fired. It?s really difficult because we want to give people the benefit of the doubt. You want to give them the second and the third chances. You want to help them. It opened me up to what it feels like to be rejected or abused. I was really blessed because I grew up with a really strong faith in God. I did believe when they say, ?God is your father.? I didn?t have a father in the home in the early years. When people asked me, ?Who?s your dad?? I go, ?Jesus is my daddy.? So growing up with this faith, that there was something greater and bigger than myself, is what has allowed me to be in a space to live with no anger, bitterness and regrets about the past. I understand that it was all part of the divine design.

Who gave you the inspiration and hope when you were young?

I go back to my faith. Growing up, the first thing I learned to read were Bible stories. Just recently, I was able to locate the Bible stories that I grew up reading. Because of reading, I was able to understand that there was a world that was literally bigger than my backyard. I knew there was something bigger beyond that front yard and the red clay of Mississippi. Something inside me believed I would be able to see it one day. That?s a spiritual connection to something bigger than myself?that?s intuition.

It?s interesting because I asked girls at my school (in South Africa) the same thing when I was trying to explain to them what intuition means and how to allow yourself to be empowered by the gift of your own intuition. Many of the girls at the school told me that they knew before they came to the school that they were going to be able to come to the school. A lot of my girls? parents have died of AIDS. One girl told me, ?I saw myself in the dorm at the school. I didn?t even know what a dorm was. But I was praying on my knees in my room. Then I saw myself being able to pray in the dorm room.? So that ability to project beyond, whatever your dire circumstances are, is so important.

How is this school you founded in South Africa?

The school is really on solid ground. We?re now in the process of finding colleges for the girls because they?ll be the first graduating class in 2011. I just spent the summer putting in a great new head of academy who understands the South African curriculum. My goal is to use this school as a model to change education for girls around the world.

I just said to friends yesterday that before I die, one of the things I want to do is change education for 100 million girls around the world. A hundred million girls around the world do not have access to primary and certainly not secondary education. I want to be able to use the fact that I have started from scratch with this school, used that as a symbol to create other models throughout the world but really as a symbol to be able to change education for 100 million girls in the world. Then I might relax (laughter), go on a yachting trip or something. I might cruise a little bit after that, yeah.

Will you open the school to boys?

When you educate a girl, you educate her whole family. When you educate girls, they are more likely to grow up and not get AIDS, protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases, not have a lot more babies than they want to have. When they do have children, they are likely to educate their children so educating a girl is like educating an entire family or community? It?s like a triple whammy investment when you invest in a girl. And also because I understand girls. I don?t know what to do with a boys? school (laughter). I wouldn?t know what to do with boys but I do with girls, particularly to disadvantaged girls. I know what that feels like, to come from nothing and to want to be something, to want to be a ?Precious? in the world.

Tell us about the TV network that you are in the process of creating.

I?m starting my own network called OWN because those initials just happen to work out for me (laughter) finally. It wasn?t so good in the third grade. My own network is going to be a channel about awareness, awakening people to the greater possibilities of their lives. That means I get to?for 24 hours of programming, seven days week?do more of what I?ve done on ?The Oprah Winfrey Show,? which has become a cultural phenomenon in that it has brought a sense of enlightenment, information and entertainment to people in a way that gets them to have their own ?aha? moments. They think differently about their lives. So I want to take 24 hours a day to be able to do the same thing, bring the same kind of enlightenment and information. I don?t have to be the sole source of that on a daily basis. I just want to be able to use my channel as a force for good in the planet.

Can you tell us two or three people who touched you deeply?

John Diaz, who was my guest on the show a couple of years ago, was in a plane crash. The plane crashed on the runway because it turned on the wrong runway (and collided with construction equipment) in a huge rainstorm. Most of the people on that plane died. John was trying to escape. He said that as he turned to try to get himself out of the front door, he looked back. Everybody was still strapped in their seats. The whole middle section of the plane was on fire. He saw light coming out of people?s heads. He described them as auras coming out of the bodies in flames. He said some of the auras were brighter than others. He said that he was not a religious man and he doesn?t know what that was about. But he made a decision that if he got out of that plane, he wanted to live his life so that when he left, he would have a bright aura. That made a huge impact on me.

I interviewed a gorgeous woman who was struck by a drunk driver. The car blew up and burned off her entire face. She had no face. It?s that moment when you meet somebody, shake her hand and her thumb is missing. It?s really hard to look at her. I said, ?You must have thought of killing yourself.? She said, ?I had too much to do.? In that moment, I paid lip service to the idea that beauty is within. It?s easy for us to say that?beauty is within and that it?s not the outside that matters.

And here is this woman who literally doesn?t have a face. Her nose has been reconstructed and they?ve built sockets for her eyes. Her eyes are watering. She really looked monstrous but as I sat with her? your eyes have to get used to looking at her?I thought, this is the real definition of beauty: to be able to look like this and move through the world and still believe that you have something to give to the world. That is what true beauty is. I was forever changed by these two great experiences.

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, ?The Nepales Report,? on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport.