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Based on the Pulitizer Prize winning novel “The Nickel Boys,” “Nickel Boys” centers on the friendship of Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson). The teens are part of Nickel Academy, a racist, nightmarish reformatory in the South. Daveed Diggs, who plays the adult Elwood, talked to Deepest Dream about what makes “Nickel Boys” a unique cinematic experience.
Filmmaker RaMell Ross co-wrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes. The feature also stars Hamish Linklater as an abusive instructor and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Elwood’s understandably concerned mother.
So you have a really wonderful way of creating art in so many different facets. With RaMell Ross, did you feel a kinship with him and that kind of partnership?
Yeah, immediately. Like before we even met, talking to him on the phone, I was like, yeah, we’re from the same soil. I just love how he thinks, and how he was going about shooting the film and how there was so much experimentation and so much belief that it was going to work out. And really like, a ton of trust in the actors. (He would) just sort of get to lead with the technical, but (with the actors) the performance is your performance.
Do you think “Nickel Boys” is a rare cinematic experience?
I’ve never seen anything like it. and then also obviously from a technical standpoint, There’s so much that it is doing that is challenging and exciting and new. I’m like a particular fan of all the intentional work with the archival footage in this film.
Also, we’re trying to create a new perspective for the archive, which is a thing that RaMell talks about a lot. I’ve seen it three times now and I love it more every time, which is wild. You know, it’s not an easy film, but it is also one that makes you really want to come back to it again. At least it does for me.
You describe this movie as brilliant, beautiful and necessary. Is it kind of cool that movie fans will watch this film and then, if they haven’t already, go back to the source material and read the book.
I think it’s rare for an adaptation of a novel to sort of create a kind of feedback loop with the novel. To be telling the same story, but in a different enough way that it does sort of encourage the reading of the novel. I think this one really does that and I think it’s beautiful. I hope people do end up experiencing both because they’re very, very different. But the totality of the makes you sort of gives a pretty a much better understanding of a lot of these, a lot of the sort of foundational Americanism that is happening in this film.
As a successful artist is complacency or or the actual act of fighting it ever part of your equation, or has that never even been part of the picture since you have a big picture of pushing forward with your art?
Oh, thank you. I don’t know, I really enjoy doing nothing. So I don’t know (if) complacency is the deal, but I do have to fight (that) tendency. I think I’m very fortunate that I’ve been an artist long enough, and in enough different ways that I don’t need a job to make me feel like an artist.
And that’s kind of like a double edged sword, because I have a one year old now, and what I really want to do is hang out with him all the time. And so sometimes it’s hard for me to realize I also have to work still.
“Nickel Boys” is such a very important film. Growing up, can you name a film that was very important for you as far as shaping you as an artist?
Oh, wow. I mean, “Do The Right Thing.”
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
“Nickel Boys” hits Los Angeles theaters on December 20 and will be released in additional markets in the coming weeks.
Check out my review of “Nickel Boys” (it’s one of my favorite films of 2024) on the CinemAddicts Podcast:
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