My name is RaMell Ross. I am the co-writer and director of “Nickel Boys.” “Young man! Young man. Do — Do you know a student named Elwood Curtis?” Hattie, who’s played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, is visiting her grandson, Elwood, who is played by Ethan Herisse at Nickel Academy, in which he’s unjustly sent. She’s running into Turner, who is Elwood’s friend, and Turner is played by Brandon Wilson, and Turner is the camera as the film is shot in point of view, our camera operator in this instance, Sam Ellison, is acting as the eyes of Turner and allowing you to participate in Turner’s reality by kind of seeing with him, seeing alongside him. And so when she comes to give Turner a hug, which she does because she says she can’t hug Elwood, she is essentially coming in close contact with Sam, and Sam is making a camera move that mimics as best as possible where the head would go and where the gaze, the eyes would go in relationship to being in that proximity. And with that process, Hattie is as Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, is unable to have that intimate connection that happens when you have a scene partner. “What is your name?” “It’s Turner, ma’am.” “Oh, Turner. Well, I’m glad I can rely on somebody around here, Turner. When was the last time you had family to come visit you?” “Oh, um, well.” “You know? I came all this way. And I can’t hug Ellwood, so I guess you will have to do. And it’s interesting for Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who has so much experience, to be put into this process in which he has to look and act directly towards and to the lens. “What are they feeding y’all? You can’t muster up a bigger hug than that. You know, I’m going to remember that next time, Turner. Hug me again.” Which means that she has a sense of loneliness and an inability, again, to have that human touch and that eye contact in which actors so much rely on. And so Aunjanue ends up, she says, in hindsight, kind of converting that loneliness and that isolation into the character Hattie, who is feeling very similarly, being out in the middle of this place without her grandson and having no one to turn to. “Thank you so much.” And I think it really pays dividends in the performance.
