Interview: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor Talks About the Conversation and Emotions Within ‘Origin’

Ava DuVernay‘s latest film Origin is seeking to start a conversation with its audience. When I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival, there was a definitely a sense that it was meant to be step one of many. As a movie, however, it’s a complete work, led by a career best turn by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Recently, she hopped on Zoom with me to discuss the performance, and the discussion took a few interesting turns. Today, that chat comes your way.

In my review from back at TIFF (here), I had the following to say about Ellis-Taylor:

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is excellent in a role that asks her to do a lot. The writer aspect of the the character, as well as the wife and daughter aspect, are both given equal weight. You feel her pain at how unfair life is, as well as the yearning to change the system. Ellis-Taylor hammers it all home with grace.

Below, you can see my conversation with Ellis-Taylor. We both seem to have similar reactions to various elements of the film, so there’s a nice little connection here. Especially when the subject of grief comes up, we’re certainly simpatico. Beyond that shared experience, I was fascinated to hear about playing a writer basically formulating a book in the movie. If you’ve seen Origin, you’ll understand, but if you haven’t, you owe it to yourself to check it out ASAP…

Here now is my interview with Origin star Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Enjoy:

Origin is in theaters now!