Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in 2023.Photo:Kevin Winter/WireImage
Kevin Winter/WireImage
Aunjanue Ellis-Tayloris recognizing the ingenuity that went into her new movie — and wishing Hollywood would do the same.
“I wish we had more to do,” Ellis-Taylor tells PEOPLE candidly, to promoteOrigin(in theaters today),Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s hit bookCaste: The Origins of Our Discontent.
“This film does something that is very, very brave,” says the actress, 54, who plays Wilkerson in the film.
“I think it is brave creatively, I think it is brave in its message, I think it confronts things in a way that is innovative. And I just think that we [in Hollywood] award the white guys for that kind of work.”
At the start of this year’s awards season, Ellis-Taylor was recognized forOriginwith a nomination at the Gotham Awards. Her performance and the film, however, have failed to land nominations with theGolden Globes,BAFTA Awardsand more, despite praise following its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
TheKing RichardOscar nominee leadsOriginas Wilkerson, the journalist and best-selling author of 2010’sThe Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. In adapting her 2020 bookCastefor the screen, DuVernay, 51, centered her new film around Wilkerson’s writing of that non-fiction book — which connects racism in the United States to the caste systems of Dalits in India and Jews in Nazi Germany.
“It is this time, this moment, that we have to look at what we are doing to each other,” says Ellis-Taylor of the film’s relevance today.
“What’s happening is not central, it’s not just the American experience. It’s an experience that is vast, it’s wide, it’s cross-cultural, it crosses time. We are connected to the Indian experience, we are connected to the Jewish experience, and the knowledge of that gives us more strength to fight those forces that would keep those divisions in place.”
(Left to right:) Aunjanue Ellis-Taylro and Ava DuVernay in 2019.Charley Gallay/Getty
Charley Gallay/Getty
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
It’s difficult, she adds, not to see similar divisions in how the moviemaking industry fails to prioritize talent and projects from Black women, like DuVernay, come awards season. “You just go, ‘Why aren’t they a part of these conversations?’”
“In this season we’ve had some beautiful, beautiful work with A.V. Rockwell inA Thousand and One, Savanah Leaf withEarth Mama, and Raven Jackson inAll Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. Gorgeous, subtle, nuanced, innovative filmmaking.”
“It feels like a disconnect,” Ellis-Taylor says, between enthusiastic responses from audiences who have previewedOriginand the lack of awards recognition.Angelina Joliethrew aparty for Oscar votershonoring the film, DuVernay and Ellis-Taylor earlier this week, whileBen AffleckandRegina KinghavepromotedOriginwith other events.
Attending the2024 Critics Choice Awardson Sunday was “hard,” adds Ellis-Taylor, who was nominated for her leading actress work in drama seriesJustified: City Primeval. “I was glad that I was there to celebrateJustified, but I felt likeOriginshould have been there.” (On Thursday — after the ceremony — DuVernay’s film received aspecial honorfrom the Critics Choice Association, the org’s Seal of Female Empowerment in Entertainment.)
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in “Origin”.NEON
NEON
DuVernay told PEOPLE this month that “we believed in [Origin], others believed in it and the response that we’ve gotten has been incredible.”
The movie, she added, “says everything that I want to say about this time” in terms of international conflicts and tensions today. “This film can be a place where we can hold hands a bit and connect around emotions as opposed to all of the things that feel like they’re dividing us.”
Origin, in theaters now, costars Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga,Audra McDonald,Niecy Nash-Betts, Nick Offerman and Blair Underwood.
source: people.com
