Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is not afraid to stand up for what she believes in.
Ava DuVernay’s new movie stars Origin she grew up in Mississippi, a state whose history of slavery, segregation and anti-black racism she knows all too well. “I come from a culture,” she tells PEOPLE, “that wants to remove people who look like me from the history books.”
“My intention is to correct that injustice,” says the 54-year-old King Richard Oscar nomination.
Example: She protested the use of the old Mississippi flag, which until 2021 was the only state flag in America that incorporated the Confederate battle flag into its design. In 2020, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill that removed and replaced the symbol of white supremacy and glorification of the Civil War.
Faith Hill calls for Mississippi to change state flag, says it’s ‘a direct symbol of terror’
In a recent interview with IndieWire, Ellis-Taylor recalled seeing a flag with the Confederate crest at a restaurant in Hattiesburg. “I wanted some catfish,” she told the outlet. But after asking a cashier about the presence of the retired flag, the actress said they were “just trying to avoid any blame”.
“I said, ‘Now you have people in this restaurant who are black, who eat your food, who work in this restaurant, and you have a Confederate flag on your walls, a Ku Klux Klan flag.’ And under the flag sat two black men who were eating.”
She concluded: “I got out of there and had to get catfish from somewhere else.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Permanent symbols of discrimination like Confederate monuments are some of the many issues at stake Originbased on the 2020 nonfiction book by Isabel Wilkerson Caste: The Origin of Our Discontent.
As the director and adaptor of the book, DuVernay combines the author’s findings about the fundamental similarities between American racism, the Nazi persecution of European Jews and Indian Dalits with biographical elements of Wilkerson herself (played by Gotham Award nominee Ellis-Taylor), dramatizing the tragic events of her life.
“I think he’s bold creatively, I think he’s bold in his message, I think he’s confronting things in a way that’s innovative,” Ellis-Taylor tells PEOPLE. “I wish it was all I did Origintried to reach the heights which Origin trying to achieve.”
But, he adds with a laugh, “it’s not like that”. Making a living in Hollywood, he says, “Sometimes you’ve got to pay the rent, you’ve got to pay the mortgage—as Halle Berry so famously said, and Gabrielle Union co-signed it.”
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor on OriginLack of award recognition: ‘We reward white people’ (exclusive)
Origin.
Atsushi-Nishijima/Courtesy of NEON
Origin not only is it a rare lead role for Ellis-Taylor, who got her start in indie films and TV dramas, it’s also the closest thing to work that aligns with her personal values. “At this point, at this point, we have to look at what we’re doing to each other,” she says.
“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.”
Ellis-Taylor does not take it for granted that her film combats such divisions. Wilkerson, she says, is “a builder of bridges, of breaking down these social divisions that are so false and stupid.”
Ava DuVernay on the ‘dark void’ she felt after her father’s death and how it affected her Origin (Exclusive)
Confronting and discussing discrimination allows the audience “to build bridges among themselves,” she adds.
“I feel like books Castemovies like Origininvite us to — whether you agree with it or not — to talk about it.”
DuVernay and Ellis-Taylor discussed the film’s message at Q&A events hosted by Angelina Jolie, Regina King and Ben Affleck. After the publication on January 19, Origin she earned a special honor, the Seal of Female Empowerment in Entertainment, from the Critics Choice Association.
Origin it’s in theaters now.
For more from Ellis-Taylor, pick up the latest issue PEOPLEnow on newsstands everywhere.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education