Anjanue Ellis-Taylor’s Measured Hope

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is done trying to get people to care. The Mississippi-raised, Tisch-trained actor has brought an impressive list of women to life in films like King Richard, The Color Purple, and Origin, and many others. She’s delivered one haunting performance after another, never shying away from stories that show the darkest sides of humanity. But in tackling these heavy topics, Ellis-Taylor knows she can’t satisfy every viewer.

“I had a friend of mine who said that to talk to folks who ain’t interested in your life, or try to convince someone to be interested in your life is a waste of time,” Ellis-Taylor tells Bustle. “It’s wasted energy.”

So when it comes to her latest film, Nickel Boys — an unvarnished look at life in a segregated boys’ reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida, adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — Ellis-Taylor is clear-eyed. She knows director RaMell Ross’ decision to film exclusively from the boys’ perspectives will be challenging for some, as it’ll force viewers to reckon with the kind of abuse that went on at the real-life schools that inspired the film’s fictional one. “You are immersed into something that is shared by these young Black boys, and that is very hard for people,” says the actor, who plays Hattie, the grandmother of a student named Elwood, whom the film primarily follows. “That is an exercise in empathy that most people are not interested in engaging in.”

But the viewers who are willing to engage with the film (in limited release Dec. 13) will find an adaptation unlike anything else in theaters this year — an artistic and emotional feat, which leaves audiences wondering about the fates of the boys we don’t see, and inevitably about their nonfiction counterparts. “I want people to feel like they are the hope for these boys,” Ellis-Taylor says. “That the hope is not in the film. We are the hope of these children who went through what they went through at the Dozier School and the hope for children in this world to never have to go through something like that again.”

Why were you drawn to the Nickel Boys adaptation?

I wanted to be a part of it because it was RaMell Ross. The icing on the cake is that it gave me an opportunity to be a part of something that introduced a travesty to a lot of people who didn't know about what happened to these young boys at the Dozier School. The Dozier School was a reformatory school in a town called Marianna, Florida. And these reformatory type schools are all over the country — sometimes they’re called military schools. And at this school particularly, these boys experienced violence, molestation, assault, and brutality at the hands of the people who were supposed to protect them.

What drew you to Hattie’s story?

When something like Hattie comes around, I’m so thankful. The Hatties of my life mean so much to me. When I get to play a character like this, I’m exhilarated by it. I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do — what I have been blessed to do.

How has your approach to choosing roles changed over the years?

I was an *sshole, you know? I was a kid and I took a lot for granted, a lot. Now, I know that the career I have is a lottery win. I didn’t see that when I was younger, but things switched probably 11 or 12 years ago. [At the time,] I went from job to job. I was making enough money to pay rent and take care of people in my life, but it was just how I made money. But then things changed. I felt like I could do something with this thing that fed who I was, or who I am when I’m not acting.

What is your usual approach to a new role? Was bringing Hattie to life different?

There was a period in my professional life when I was like, “I just wanna play Denzel Washington’s wife,” you know? [Then] I was like, “I wanna play Denzel Washington’s roles.” I’m still trying to do that. So, I would get my lines for the next day and go, “How would Denzel do this?” There are other actors like Ruby Dee and Mary Alice who were also inspirations.

But for something like Hattie, it was very contained. I had a tremendous script to draw from, and I think that’s what I reverted to over and over again.

I talked to RaMell before [my first day on set], and we agreed that, yeah, she has a breakdown — when she enters the scene, we see her suffering. So I pulled my clothes, I did my hair a little crazy. And then when we actually [shot] it, we both looked at each other and we said, “That does not work.” Hattie has to be Elwood’s hope for a possibility of a life outside of this place. She can’t render self-destruction. She can’t render anything other than that there will be a tomorrow.

Then, probably because she lives inside me, my grandmother started circulating through my veins. No matter what was going on outside of our house — the fact that we didn’t have money, and we were living in poverty — she always presented herself with grace and strength. She had to hold a whole family and community in her hands.

She can’t render self-destruction. She can’t render anything other than that there will be a tomorrow.

In the film, there’s a scene where Hattie is slicing a homemade cake for Elwood while she has a very difficult conversation with him. What was going through your mind as you performed that? Does your family have a dish you make during times of crisis?

Everything my grandmother made made me feel better. That was just a function of her existence — cooking food that we ate. My grandmother wasn’t a sentimental woman; she was not an affectionate woman. There were no hugs and kisses, she showed me how much she loved me and others in other ways that were just as profound and beautiful and fortifying and abundant.

So, I would say that that cake scene was a standout for me too. As she’s cutting this cake, I felt anger, I felt rage, you know? The knife was doing a lot of work. I remember that knife being in my hand, and how so much energy and rage went into the holding of that knife, and keeping that knife in that cake because if the knife comes out of the cake, somebody would die.

Can you talk about what possibilities open up for art when we make space for stories without happy endings? How do you want viewers to feel as they walk away?

We want it all, you know, wrapped up in a bow, even when the subject matter is something that is horrific. In this case, when it’s about the brutality against American children, we want to feel hope. [But] we should feel anger. We should feel fury. We should feel challenged at least. How did this happen? How does this continue to happen? What can I do to bring light to this problem that apparently is still existing all over the country, and perhaps all over the world in different forms? You know, that is how we should feel. We should feel challenged. We feel we should feel a little ashamed. We should feel a little bit of what those children felt. That is what we owe them. We owe them that.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.