Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor Talks ‘Nickel Boys’ And Its Interrogation Of “Artistic Erasure”

“Nickel Boys” has received a healthy share of nominations during awards season, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor received a Critics Choice nod (Supporting Actress) for her role. During the interview, Ellis-Taylor talked about what makes “Nickel Boys” director Ramell Ross a unique artist.

Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitizer Prize winning book “The Nickel Boys,” the narrative centers on Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse), a youth who is sent to Nickel Academy. Elwood should not have been placed at this abusive reformatory, as he was simply a victim of circumstance.

At the reformatory he befriends Turner (Brandon Wilson), a teen who gives Elwood some important lessons on survival. Directed and co-written by RaMell Ross (in collaboration with Joslyn Barnes), “Nickel Boys” co-stars as Elwood’s loving and dedicated mother Hattie. She is determined to get him out of Nickel Academy even if the odds are stacked against them. Runding out the ensemble are Hamis Linklater, Fred Hechinger, and Daveed Diggs.

“What I love about RaMell is that he is interrogating,” said Ellis-Taylor, who also starred this year in the ‘Exhibiting Forgiveness.’ “He is confronting the way we see images, the way that we see films. I think the conventional response to black erasure, right, artistic erasure or cinematic erasure is we’re increasing the volume of stories that we tell about black life. But he is saying that’s not enough. We have to confront the machinery itself, which is the camera. How is the camera complicit in in that erasure, in that abject objectification? In how that violence that happens to black images on screen? And that’s exciting to me.”

Now playing in Los Angeles, “Nickel Boys” hits New York theaters on Friday, December 20. More markets to come in subsequent weeks.

Check out my review of “Nickel Boys” on the lateest episode of CinemAddicts:

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