Nickel Boys directed by RaMell Ross, based on Colson Whitehead’s award-winning novel has been garnering laurels already with Ross being awarded best director at The Gotham Awards and Brandon Wilson being awarded best breakthrough talent there, also.
Nickel Boys is based on a real reformatory school which began operating during the Jim Crow segregation years where young Black men were horrifically abused and murdered. Ethan Herisse stars as Elwood Curtis, a young man from Tallahassee who, on the eve of going to college, is arrested and sent to The Nickel Academy in Florida where he meets Jack Turner from Houston, played by Brandon Wilson. It is a film that spans decades and the ongoing systemic violence committed on the minds, bodies, and cultural consciousness of Black Americans.
Nadine Whitney had the immense honor of speaking to Ethan and Brandon about their work and the importance and impact of the film.
Nadine Whitney: Hello, hello, you beautiful, beautiful men. I was profoundly moved by Nickel Boys. Many people are discovering RaMell Ross’ singular vision and his unique way to deliver narrative cinema.
I first wanted to ask you about learning about the notion of shared identity, which is something that begins to merge between the two characters, Elwood and Turner.
How much of that was brought through the different points of view RaMell Ross made you experience through the filming of the piece. From their meeting at The Nickel Academy both characters teach each other different things. Turner teaches about class and economics. Elwood opens Turner’s eyes to the literature, the beautiful, civil rights, and hope. They have a different sense of what it is like being a young Black man in America at the time, but a sense that informs each other.
Ethan Herisse: Oh, there’s so many layers to that emotionally. RaMell had talked to us about Colson Whitehead’s book and Colson’s perspective of seeing himself as both Turner and Elwood. RaMell, in a similar way, when he was writing the film with Joslyn Barnes said that he was viewing himself as both of these characters speaking through different perspectives. Getting to play those and experience Turner’s and Elwood’s relationship. From the moment they meet their worlds depend on one another.
And as you’re saying, the way they challenge each other, their differing ideas because they’re clashing and trying to fix the other person or teach the other person. And when they let go of that and they, I mean more so Elwood with for Turner because he kind of can crack his shell a little bit and show him at the world can be so much bigger.
From that point on Turner can’t live without Elwood, which is why he, I mean, there’s not really a choice, is motivated and why he comes and stays with him in the sweat box because I don’t think Turner could survive anymore without Elwood in his life.
Brandon Wilson: Elwood won’t be surviving without Turner in that moment anymore, either.
Ethan Herisse: There’s so much the idea of the shared. Even the way film was shot. It invites you into the experience through these boys’ eyes after they share the identity of both of them and gets you immersed in this world so much more directly and intimately. Aunjanue had some way of describing it, but I’ve forgotten how she put it.
Nadine Whitney: Speaking of Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, her performance as Hattie (Elwood’s grandmother) is extraordinary. You can feel when Turner is held by her, it’s like the first time he’s been held by anyone for most of his life. What was it like acting with her?
Ethan Herisse: Yeah, yeah. She’s mind-blowing. Oh, this is my second time working with her. [The first was Ava DuVernay’s mini-series When They See Us]. I was so fortunate to have experienced that.
Then this time around with me being Elwood I was always with camera as it’s the point of view when we were working together. I was able to watch her act while also, you know, being present with her. And it’s really incredible how she is able to bring the best out of who she is performing with because of her presence. You there is no way that you can be in a moment and in a scene with her and you would not be pulled in and not be engaged and be affected by what’s happening.
I was not stunned by how amazing she was, but I was stunned how that even in those moments, in every moment where I was, you know, off camera it felt like nothing else mattered. There wasn’t ever anything around us, in that it felt as though she was speaking directly to me and pouring all of those words and emotions into me.
It takes a really talented and special individual to do something like that and to effect people in that way and that’s speaking as a person who was there on set with her. But for her to also be to be able to captivate everyone. I started watching her on screen in the movie and because she’s looking directly the camera, anyone sitting in the audience knows exactly what I’m saying. You experience everything. You are fully pulled into the moments because of her.
You are feeling that love that she is pouring into Elwood and into Turner. and into that hug because it’s being played right to you as an audience member. So, it’s an incredible feat and she’s fantastic.
Nadine Whitney: Brandon, how did you feel working with her?
Brandon Wilson: Equally blown away, this is my first time working with her and I remember there was a moment where I felt I hadn’t met Aunjanue until a few months ago. Because what she was asked to do in the film, I think it’s different than what me and Ethan were asked to do in the film.
She was I think very much alone in a lot of her exploration. I can’t speak for her process, but it felt like she was very much in her own zone in when we were filming, so yeah, I never felt like I actually met her until recently.
But to get to still witness her was… yeah (breathes out in appreciation). I remember talking to Ethan in some of the first days when I first came in, and I think because of this kind of an aloneness that she had to live in, I felt so separate from her.
The first scenes that we had that I talked to Ethan, and I was like, “I don’t I feel like I’m here. Do I have any scenes with her? It doesn’t even matter if I’m there.”
I was just talking so flippantly and just with disregard, but I’m fortunate to have that safe space. To say silly things and the to regret them because very quickly I got so much. I saw who she was actually and just how powerful she was and getting to watch her more and I would just get pulled in more and more. I remember then I came back to Ethan later, I was like my bad. I said something stupid. (Both laughing)
Nadine Whitney: I’d like to talk to about working with the director of photography Jomo Fray. He has a radical and distinctive eye, and you get to actually wear that eye. What was it like wearing this point of view, this empathetic humanistic point of view as an actor.
Brandon Wilson: We got really close to Jomo. I mean, sometimes we were physically wearing this point of view. Sometimes Ethan would wear the camera on his chest or sometimes I would have the thing that Daveed Diggs was in and the cameras behind the head.
Ethan Herisse: But a lot of times it would be Jomo still controlling the camera and we would just be very, very close to his back. Because of that and also because of the way he shot it and the way RaMell shot it – he talks about like having to find what our eyes actually do and like what it actually is to live in our bodies. Because when we trade places and Turner becomes our eyes, but we remain present with Elwood. It gave us the opportunity to become so much closer that with the cinematographer and the camera operators than maybe would have ever had if there was filming some just more traditional way.
Nadine Whitney: Jomo is a visual poet. I know this is ridiculous. I’m talking to you, the stars, and I’m rattling on about the cinematography.
Ethan Herisse: We share your excitement about Jomo. He just won an award for the film from the New York Film Critics Circle. So, go Jomo!
Nadine Whitney: What would you like to say about the film? What would you like audiences to take away from it?
Ethan Herisse: I say something about the film, and I will make you (points to Brandon) talk about the audience.
Brandon Wilson: It’s the same pressure! (laughing).
Ethan Herisse: What I have to say about the film is that it’s really special to have had an experience like we did on set when we were making it. Where it was filled with a lot of love and joy and we really got to dive into this new experience. Into the beauty of collaboration. Then to be able to see it and see that all of what we experienced on the set everything that I described reflected in the movie. So, you’re able to feel that and experience that.
Furthermore, to be on this journey where we are able to talk about it and it is being acknowledged and we get to celebrate it. It’s a true privilege to be a part of something that was as special as a movie like Nickel Boys.
I can’t say you dream about something like this, because I honestly, I feel like you don’t see something like this coming. But I feel like you know when something is good, and that was the feeling throughout the whole process of making the film that we were doing something good.
I just want to continue to share Nickel Boys with as many people as possible because I think it’s an experience that everyone should dive into.
Brandon Wilson: We have talked about RaMell and how RaMell is very much very still on this idea of wanting to give the Nickel Boys more life and the story of the boys the Dozier School more life. When stories like these come to light rather than the boys remaining statistics or just being remembered for their deaths. I think something Aunjanue was talking about was the way the film was shot. She would discuss when people tell her that the film is hard.
I would also like to add that this film is so beautiful. It does in that way as well show you that these boys, even though they’re going through something so dark, that there is life. When Elwood looks up at a tree or is looking at a leaf in his hand, there’s still so much awe and wonder that is universal to all humans. That awe still exists in a person who’s going through a terrible situation. I hope people recognize that as well.
Nadine Whitney: It is profoundly beautiful, and that’s part of the pain, I think, too, is to see how both Turner and Elwood see each other. Life and its possibilities; the small and the large and the eternal and to know that for some their lights were ended.
So, thank you very much for your time. I really haven’t seen a film like it and it’s extraordinary and you are both extraordinary people.
Ethan Herisse: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.
