RADAR PROFILE
A conversation with out-of-this-world talent Ava DuVernay.
A one-on-one with AWrinkleinTime director Ava DuVernay. (You’ll never guess what she taught Oprah.)
WHEN WE ASK Ava DuVernay whether she has ever imparted any lessons to her long-time friend and collaborator and fount of all wisdom Oprah Winfrey, we are not expecting the answer to involve a food court.
“I’ve taught her about mall food,” says the 45-yearold director, producer and screenwriter. The California native launches into an anecdote about how the pair were driving somewhere together (as you do) and DuVernay spied a fast-food spot that sold some h
particularly standout pretzels with pepperoni baked in. She stopped and went into the mall to get them each one.
“Then Oprah was like, ‘What is this? I’ve never tasted buttery goodness like this!’ And I was like, ‘There’s one in every mall in America.’ So it’s just normal-person things like that that I’ve taught her,” laughs DuVernay in her distinctive husky voice, made a little raspier than normal thanks to a cold that she says is at the stage where “it has become fond of me and does not want to leave.”
And, honestly, you can’t fault that rhinovirus, because if there’s any person in the entertainment industry in 2018 whose coattails you should ride—or just scuttle after in the hope of absorbing genius by osmosis— DuVernay is that woman. She was already a respected filmmaker when her career skyrocketed after 2014’s civil-rights biopic Selma, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director and an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. That was followed by an Oscar nom for Best Documentary Feature for 13th (which links slavery and mass incarceration in America), making her the first black woman to be recognized in that category. And she did all that while writing and producing the Winfrey-exec-produced Queen Sugar. Throughout that timeline, there have been umpteen other awards, nominations and even a Barbie made in her image (which, btw, reportedly sold out in 17 minutes).
That roughly catches us up to A Wrinkle in Time, a Disney film based on the beloved children’s book, which is now in theatres. DuVernay directed the film and so became the first woman of colour ever to direct a live-action production with a budget of over $100 million.
How does this film— a fantasy about a young girl who travels through time and space—fit in with the rest of your resumé? “Everything I do is cultural-justice filmmaking, and this fits firmly into that. The story of a young black girl saving the universe is not so very different from Selma to me. Social justice is about imagining a world that isn’t there and making it so. That’s what Dr. King did, and it’s what Meg does in this film.” Why did this project call out to you? “I loved fantasy and sci-fi movies when I was growing up, but I never saw anyone who looks like me in them. And I never saw a film that projects fantasy from a feminized point of view because I never saw films directed by women in that space. I wanted to be a woman who could imagine worlds and planets and think about interstellar travel. I wanted to have made The Lord of the Rings! It was important to me to step into that space but then bring in a girl who is usually absent in those stories and make her the centre.” How did you work to tell this story “from a feminized POV”? “I actively looked at all the standard tropes and, with Disney’s support, worked to subvert them. In most fantasy films, there are the standard rhythms—something has to blow up, somebody has to die—and comic-book movies use that cutting rhythm, which was established by male storytelling in the genre. My idea was to apply a much more layered unfolding. It’s mood, an experience, as opposed to a heavy-hitting plot.” Did you learn anything about the universe in the research for this film that blew your mind? “The way the universe works always blows my mind because we don’t know how it works. Nobody does. The fascinating thing is that everything is theoretical. I find thinking about what could be out there a deeply spiritual, emotional thing. I’ve been interested in it since I was little, so to be able to play with it on film has been... gosh, a geeked-out joy.” Winfrey, Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon play “celestial guides” who take Meg around the universe. Do you believe in any sort of guiding forces in real life? “I believe the universe is made up of vibrations. I’ve studied science, and through that I have this certainty about energy. I know that loved ones who have passed are not gone because energy never goes away; it just takes a different form. I believe that when I walk into a room, I give off a certain vibration, and that dictates what comes back to me. When you get around people, you feel their energy. Not in a hippie kind of way, but if you really become still, you can be sensitive.” This film has so many lessons—like believing in yourself. Which one resonates the most with where you are right now in your life? “There’s a character named Calvin who’s a young white boy. He’s Meg’s friend, and there are times in the movie when he asks her ‘What do we do?’ She’s the leader. One day, I got emotional looking at her because it’s not an image I’ve ever seen in another film. A girl of colour leads a white boy throughout a film. That resonates with me because it’s what I do as a director—I have thousands of crew members looking to me, a black woman, asking ‘What do I do?’ When we talk about privilege, whether because of race, sexual identity or gender, it’s vital that people are able to see different kinds of leaders and heroes—just to know that it’s possible because they see it.” n