Oprah Winfrey had always had dreams of owning her own church.
The talk show host "idolised" Martin Luther King Jr. when she was younger and admitted that the move into television her career saw was the closest path she could find to emulating his leadership.
Speaking at the premiere of Selma, she told the New York Post newspaper's Page Six column: "I was so enthralled by Dr. King. I wanted to be Dr. King. I wanted to grow up and have my own church, run my own congregation and be my own order and lead the people. I didn't exactly do that, but my television show was a way of doing that.
"He was an enormous influence on me. Mrs. King was a personal friend of mine until she died. I have a great respect for the legacy of what he left for all of us."
She does however insist that she hasn't achieved anything that could compare to that of the humanitarian's achievements, calling his endeavours unique.
"In every generation there comes along a person like Dr. King who has the ability to garner the hearts and the spirits of a nation, to help people to see in themselves what they could not possibly believe could be true.
"In my life, I do work to help people from all different backgrounds and I joined this project to help [director] Ava DuVernay and [star] David Oyelowo. I wanted to see them succeed."
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