Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is the self-proclaimed "queen of taping."
Growing up on her grandmother's farm in Mississippi, "I knew that I wanted to express myself creatively in some way," she recalls. "But I'm from the backwoods. There's no template for what I'm doing. There ain't no actresses from there. We knew about Oprah Winfrey" — who was born in rural Mississippi — "but that was a fluke. That was a comet that came down and turned into Oprah Winfrey. So, I didn't even give myself the permission to think in that way."
Ellis-Taylor first discovered theater while getting her B.A. in African-American studies, and finally pursued acting as a graduate student at NYU. She made her film debut in the 1996 independent drama, Girls Town, and followed it with roles in 2000's Men of Honor and 2004's Oscar-winning Ray.
"All along, I'm going, 'This is going to end. I'm going to have to get a real job.' I'm going to be honest with you — I try to be real transparent — it wasn't until about 12 years ago that I was like, okay, people are continuing to hire me. And at that point, my family was dependent on me for these checks, so I said, 'I've got to take this seriously,'" Ellis-Taylor says.
"Around that time, they were casting The Help in Mississippi, and I remember driving myself to Greenwood to audition for Tate Taylor and putting myself again on tape and taping, and taping, and taping. I was the queen of taping," she explains. "I just stopped accepting no from people. I was like, listen, you've got to give me this job, or I'm going to do everything I can so you'll be tired of me."
Ellis-Taylor booked the role of Yule May Davis in The Help. In 2019, she received her first Emmy Award nomination for Ava DuVernay's limited series, When They See Us. In 2021, Ellis-Taylor played Oracene Price, mother of Venus and Serena Williams, in King Richard, for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She brought her sister, Sasha, as her date for the 94th Academy Awards. ("She helped me read for King Richard and everything to send my tapes, so I wanted her there with me.")
The actress reunited with DuVernay for Origin, in which she plays Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent. After meeting with the filmmaker, Ellis-Taylor returned home ready to prove herself. "So, I tape, tape, tape, tape, tape, tape, tape, tape," she says, "and in the middle of that rash of taping, she called me and said she wanted me to play Isabel."
Below, Ellis-Taylor shares with A.frame five films that shaped her as an actress, including the films she turned to for inspiration on Origin.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg | Written by: Menno Meyjes
I love the original The Color Purple for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons that I loved it so much is that I'm a queer woman. The Color Purple is a movie about Black lesbians. We weren't saying that, but it's a movie about Black lesbians. I think I was probably in 9th or 10th grade when I saw it for the first time. And at the time, I knew that there was something wrong with me in everyone else's eyes but I didn't know what. And when everybody around you is straight, you feel like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing? This is what's going on? This is the rest of my life?
So, the scene where Margaret Avery kisses Whoopi Goldberg felt like a little bit of freedom for me. That's what I could be, whether it was on-screen or not on-screen. I could express that somewhere in the world.
[Ellis-Taylor has a role in Blitz Bazawule's movie musical adaptation of 'The Color Purple,' playing the mama of young Celie and Nettie.]
That was strange to be a part of. I was like, 'Come on, y'all. For real?' I've just been talking to a lot of queer women lately, and I want to embrace that. It needs to be celebrated as a movie about Black lesbians, because that's why it meant so much to me originally.
Directed by: Daniel Petrie | Written by: Lorraine Hansberry
The reason why I chose A Raisin in the Sun is because Ruby Dee is my hero. She's an on-screen thinker. You see what's going on in her eyes before she utters a word. I didn't see it a long time ago — I saw it within the last six or seven years — but it's one of the movies that makes me want to be an actress.
Directed by: Krzysztof Kieślowski | Written by: Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz
The Three Colors trilogy that Kieślowski did, they felt appropriate to Origin. The reason why is that they have women in them, and the women are thinking. There's so much in it that has no dialogue. It's just observing folks and these characters in a lived life, and honoring that, that is enough to have a camera to witness. So, those three movies affected me.
Directed by: Krzysztof Kieślowski | Written by: Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Blue was actually the last one that I saw, and that character is dealing with grief. And it is not particularly pushed by any big dramatic flourish or any dramatic plot. You just observe her in life.
Written and Directed by: Terrence Malick
A Hidden Life is one of my favorite films. You have this character who refuses to back down and is put in jail because of it. You just watch this man, and see how his belief system is so strong, and how even in the face of death, he refuses to let go of it. He refuses to bend. I see Isabel in that way.
