Aunjanue Ellis Taylor on Why She Had to Be Uncomfortable for Ava DuVernay’s ‘Origin’

When Oscar nominee Taylor first learned that director was working on a film inspired by Isabel Wilkerson’s book — which would feature the award winning journalist front and center as the protagonist — the actress sprang into action. Having previously earned an Emmy nom for another DuVernay helmed project (the Netflix limited series ), she pitched herself to portray Wilkerson.

The result is a stirring, emotional drama that sees Wilkerson embark on an intellectual journey across the globe as she prepares a wide ranging thesis connecting the caste system in India to both the Holocaust and racial disparity in the U.S. — all while enduring great personal loss. Ellis Taylor explains to how she prepared for the role and her own scholarship as she embodied Wilkerson onscreen.

I knew Ms. Wilkerson by her stellar reputation as being a Pulitzer Prize winner. Coincidentally, I read [Wilkerson’s Pulitzer winning] the summer before I became a part of this. Ava had been a little far along in her casting process. Because of that, I needed to do a little convincing. I looked at a picture of Ms.

Wilkerson, and I said to my sister, “I think I could look like her.” I ordered a dress, because Ms. Wilkerson is very famous for wearing these sheath dresses, burgundy reds. We got some pearls from Amazon. I went to the local beauty supply, got a wig. I took a picture and sent it to Aisha Coley, the casting director, who passed it on to Ava.

I went to Savannah [Georgia] to have a conversation with Ava about the film. That was one of the first things that Ava said to me. We talked about just what you said: that you don’t get to see women thinking onscreen. You see that in foreign films, but you don’t see that in American filmmaking. And when she said, “I want to do a film that is about the interiority of a Black woman,” I was like, Yes!” She also said, “I want someone to walk and work with who does not need comfort on set.” She was very blunt about it.

“I’m not going to have a trailer for you. You’re going to be thrust into humanity.” I was up and down for that. I was studying on camera, but I was also studying off camera. I needed to believe myself, espousing these ideas. I did a lot of comparative reading [from] the bibliography of Ms. Wilkerson’s book.

So much of what she [writes about is pulled] from these great scholars who had done it before her, so I read their work. I did a little bit of that supportive reading, but a lot of what I needed to concentrate on was actually within the book. And I’m still battling those things, going back and forth with those ideas, because they’re incredibly heady.

When I’ve been given shots at playing these women … Oh my God, they’re always these incredible people. That, I have to leave at the door. I’ve played some really great women, [some of whom] were the first to do what they did. That’s a hard weight, and I have to refuse that or I can’t do my job.

No. She and Ava had arrived at this place allowing Ava to do her thing with it. She’s a very private person, and I respected that. I found her in . Her book is as much of a memoir as it is a work of historical journalism. That’s what makes her such a genius at what she does — it feels so intimate.

You feel so personally spoken to. With writers particularly — and I’m a writer myself — you are constantly in the realm of imagination. She’s a journalist, so truth is essential to what she does, but how do you tell the truth in a way that is engaging and accessible? Her writing is not opaque.

It’s not academic. That’s her genius. One of the early conversations that I had with Ava after I was cast in the film [was about her feeling] conflicted because she wanted to honor specific things about Ms. Wilkerson and her book. I said to her, “There is the book, and there is the film. And they’re two different things.” Not everybody is like me and thinks that an afternoon spent in Barnes & Noble is a good time.

But people love movies; people love going and sitting in a dark room with popcorn and being immersed into other worlds. It’s an opportunity for another life for this book: You can reach people who are not readers, people who are not academics, people who don’t read nonfiction, or don’t read at all.

You can reach them in this cinematic space, and it democratizes the experience. And I said, “There’s another audience that will just come to the theater because Ava DuVernay is directing it.” She has an ice cream named after her! ( .) So what foods do you offer them when they’re there? It is another means of access to these radical ideas.

. THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.