Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor on Origin’s Lack of Awards Recognition: ‘We Award the White Guys’ (Exclusive)

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor recognizes the genius that went into her new film – and wants Hollywood to do the same.

“I wish we had more work,” Ellis-Taylor candidly tells PEOPLE to promote Origin (in theaters today), an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s hit book by Ava DuVernay Caste: The Origin of Our Discontent.

“This movie does something that is very, very brave,” says the actress, 54, who plays Wilkerson in the film.

“I think he’s bold creatively, I think he’s bold in his message, I think he’s facing things in a way that’s innovative. And I just think that we [in Hollywood] to reward white men for that kind of work.”

At the start of this year’s awards season, Ellis-Taylor was recognized for Origin with a nomination at the Gotham Awards. Her performance and the film, however, failed to garner nominations for the Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards and more, despite acclaim following its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The King Richard Oscar nominee leads Origin as Wilkerson, journalist and bestselling author of the 2010s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of the Great American Migration. In the adaptation of his book from 2020 Caste for the screen, DuVernay, 51, centers her new film on Wilkerson’s writing of that nonfiction book — which links racism in the United States to the caste systems of Dalits in India and Jews in Nazi Germany.

“At this point, at this point, we have to look at what we’re doing to each other,” Ellis-Taylor says of the film’s relevance today.

“What is happening is not central, it is not only an American experience. It is an experience that is huge, broad, cross-cultural, and passes through time. We are connected to the Indian experience, we are connected to the Jewish experience, and knowing that gives us more strength to fight against those forces that would keep those divisions in place.”

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(Left to right:) Aunjanue Ellis-Taylro and Ava DuVernay in 2019.

Charley Gallay/Getty

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It’s hard, she adds, not to see similar divisions in the film industry’s failure to prioritize the talent and projects of black women, like DuVernay, during awards season. “You just say, ‘Why aren’t they part of these conversations?'”

And while she wants DuVernay to “feel validated in the industry she’s working in,” Ellis-Taylor says she’s not the only black female director lacking recognition.

“We had wonderful, wonderful work with AV Rockwell this season One thousand and oneSavannah Leaf with Mother Earthand Raven Jackson inside All dirt roads The taste of salt. Beautiful, subtle, nuanced, innovative filmmaking.”

“It feels like a disconnect,” Ellis-Taylor says, between enthusiastic responses from the watching audience Origin and lack of award recognition. Angelina Jolie hosted a party for Oscar voters honoring the film, DuVernay and Ellis-Taylor earlier this week, while Ben Affleck and Regina King promoted Origin with other events.

Attending the 2024 Critics Choice Awards on Sunday was “difficult,” adds Ellis-Taylor, who was nominated for her lead actress in a drama series. Justified: A primordial city. “I was glad to be there to celebrate Justifiedbut I felt like Origin should have been there.” (On Thursday — after the ceremony — DuVernay’s film received a special honor from the Critics Choice Association, the Seal of the Organization for the Empowerment of Women in Entertainment.)

Aujanue Ellis-Taylor in the movie “Origin”.

NEON

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DuVernay told PEOPLE this month that “we believed in [Origin]others believed in it and the response we got was incredible.”

The film, she added, “says everything I want to say about this time” in terms of international conflicts and tensions today. “This movie can be a place where we can hold hands a little bit and bond over emotions, as opposed to all the things that seem to divide us.”

Originnow in theaters, starring Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Niecy Nash-Betts, Nick Offerman and Blair Underwood.

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Source: HIS Education