RaMell Ross, who directed Nickel Boys based on the Colson Whitehead novel, believes the prolific writer gave his blessing to the film adaptation.
“As far as I know, Colson Whitehead is the writer who, like, wants to write, and do that. And so, I talked with [producers] Jeremy [Kleiner] and Dede [Gardner], like, I can’t believe, you know, he’s letting me do this. I get his email address. Write him an email. A really long one. Overly verbose, I’m sure you can imagine. ‘I always wanted to be a writer’ type of thing. Which is true,” Ross said after a screening of Nickel Boys, which will open the New York Film Festival tonight.
“And then he writes back. ‘Appreciate it, congratulations and good luck.’”
“And at first I was like, literally, way too many words, really. But then, I think, it was just him giving his blessing, which I appreciate. Because, you know, the pressures of making a film are well known, and to have also the one-to-one pressure of the original artist’s expectations, I’m unsure how that would have panned out,” he said when asked if Whitehead was involved with the film or had seen it.
“Yeah, I think he’s watched the film. I don’t know much else. I’ve been told that Colson is in the middle of writing another book, and I imagine he, if I were to write him, he would say the same thing.”
“So I’m not going to, but I’m sure I’ll chat with him at some point.”
Nickel Boys, which world premiered at Telluride last month, is Ross’ first narrative feature and follows his acclaimed Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening.
Whitehead’s book is inspired by the Dozier School, a Florida reformatory in business for over a century with a brutal history in the Jim Crow south. After it closed, authorities discovered 100 unmarked graves of boys, mostly Black youths, subject to horrific treatment. In Nickel Boys, the inferno is called the Nickel Academy and the story zooms in on a friendship between two young men, studious and hopeful Elwood, played by Ethan Herisse, and Brandon Wilson’s more cynical Turner. The film spans the early 1960s to 2010, with three different actors, including Daveed Diggs, playing over the course of the film.
Aunjunue Ellis-Taylor plays Elwood’s grandmother.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Orion Pictures will release the film theatrically October 25.
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