Work in Progress with Sophia BushAva DuVernay went from working behind the scenes as a Hollywood publicist to picking up a camera at the age of thirty-two and changing her career path to become an award-winning, celebrated writer and director.
Ava joins Sophia to talk about her journey into filmmaking, why she is at the most vulnerable time of her life, and what it was like crowdfunding her latest and most personal film, "Origin," which tackles race and hierarchies.
"Origin" is in theaters on January 19th. To support the film, go to Seat16.com and gift $16 for a ticket and a one-year subscription to masterclass to teens across the United States.
Hey everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hello friends, Today I am almost beside myself because our guest is a woman who I admire so much that I'm actually nervous about how I'm going to manage to talk to her. I perhaps have done more prep and taken more notes. My laptop screen looks like a beautiful mind because I just have so many things I want to pick her brain about, and I'm so inspired by her work. She is none other than Ava du Vernet. You likely know her as an award winning director and writer. Perhaps you know her from being on the Time one hundred list of the most influential people in the world, having one Best Director at sun Dance and by the way, being the first African American woman to do so, being nominated for Best Director for the Golden Globes for Selma directing a film nominated for Best Picture for Oscar. Also Selma directing a film with a budget of over one hundred million dollars A wrinkle in time. Her accolades go on and on. Her humanity somehow, despite the size of her star, precedes her in every room. I am constantly blown away by her and inspired by her because she is not only an artist and a storyteller, but a teacher. Ava is the kind of person who invites everyone in to learn more, do more, and imagine more for all of us, just by being herself. And her new film, Origin will be in theaters on January nineteenth. Origin is based on the best selling book cast by Isabel Wilkerson. The book is about the unspoken system that has shaped America and also the world, the caste system. It chronicles how lives to day and historically have been and are defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. It is a book that is incredibly intellectual, written by one of the most brilliant academic minds of our time, and yet Ava managed to pull a narrative story out of this five hundred page book that is so human and so personal and somehow so universal. I really believe you will see yourselves reflected in it. I think you will be touched and crushed and motivated to be more human, more loving, more active in your families and communities. And I just I can't wait for you all to see this movie, and I cannot wait to ask her questions about how she manages to take stories like this and bring us all along for the journey. So, with no further ado, let's speak with Ava du Verne.
Hello, how are you, friend? Hi? How are you I am? I'm good. I'm learning me too. I'm learning things. You know, a lot journey, so I'm embracing the lessons. How are you.
I Different journeys, but same energy for sure.
Listen, I hear that.
Yeah, it's been a season of learning. I was catching up with a friend of mine today who is a he's a beautiful artist and he's really been in it. And I just said, you know, maybe that's the thing. When you sign up to learn and you age, the lessons get bigger, so they're more complex and more difficult, but more profound.
Listen, amen, Amen to that.
Yeah, I mean you made the most beautiful piece of art about exactly this.
Yes, I think you know it's about uh, you know, it's about embracing the lessons and really seeing them as experiences that are happening not to you. Why is this happening to me but for you? Right?
You just gave me full chills. I have this conversation one hour ago.
Yeah. Yeah, And so as soon as I ever think that and I heard that from from from my my, a good friend of mine who used to have a talk show many years ago. Yeah, she said that to me, and it really changed everything for me. And when I forget it and I remind myself of it, it immediately calms me. This hard thing, this challenging thing, isn't to you. It's happening for you, and it makes me stop and just changes my perspective. Okay, wait, what's the lesson here? What am I supposed to take from this? What am I supposed to do or how am I supposed to be? So I'm having to remind my I solve that about a lot lately.
So wow, so full transparency. I just had that conversation. Tuesday mornings, I do therapy and then I record the podcast, and I was having this conversation with my therapist about how so many people I know are in this big season of transition and transformation that is coming with lessons. And then I said, and it's it's not lost on me that when you really get into it and you pull the thread, you realize everything's connected, right, And then I started talking about your movie and I was sobbing on zoom with my therapist. I was like and then she made this movie and she managed to get the whole book in the movie, and it's really intense, and I was just weeping, and I was like, I haven't stopped crying since I watched it. And I think about the way, since I became aware of your work, I have been so moved by your work and by you as a person.
You are.
You are so such a powerful presence and such a kind soul. You will take the time to, you know, respond to an Instagram note you advocate in this way that is so true. You are an artist and a writer and a director and a storyteller and a change maker and a justice seeker, and you invite other people to seek with you. And it's something that I realize in these seasons of transition, I really want to take the time to stay out loud and just say thank you for thank you.
I received that thank you. I feel your words fla very much. Thank you. I drink it in and and yeah, you know, it makes me sad when I hear that, because I wonder, and I hear it quite a bit. I'm just people saying gosh you thank you for replying to me, or thank you to people. Don't reply, do you like is this not happening? People are not I think people are experiencing a lack of response, a lack of kindness, and a lack of connectivity. And so when you a small gestures sometimes mean so much, and you've gone through the day thirsty for even someone to look you in the eye acknowledge it, you know what I mean, and that that there's that that kind of absence of connection. And so but for me, it's it's it's harder to ignore people than it is to just lean in and you see something. Why would you not say I like it? If someone comes into your head. My mother always taught me, if someone comes in your head, called them, that someone comes into your head, texts them they're there for a reason, you know what I mean, Like follow your feelings. And I think for me, it's more effort to cut it off. And I think our industry, you know, our industry, and and then and this life in general, work and all the things that society tells us we should think about. There's just a way from listening to Hey, if that person came to your hit or if you thought about that, that's follow it. Yeah, don't follow the world. Follow what's in here, and and so I find when I do that, I'm much I'm much more happy.
That's beautiful. I think it's also a nice reminder to hear you say that because so many people. I've had this conversation with a lot of folks on this show and in life, and I know I suffer from this a little bit. I never want to bother anybody.
I know me too, you know.
I think we can get really cultured into I don't want to be in the way I And what that is, I think is the it's the sort of action of imposter syndrome a little bit. Well, I'll be a little annoying if I do this, or maybe I'll be bothering somebody. They're probably so busy, And what can happen is when everyone assumes you're busy, nobody bothers you.
That's true.
And so to take the time to do that and to remind people that you should follow those sort of instincts or those moments of you know, energetic motivation, that yeah, that's going to help people.
I think I like that that term energetic motivation very much. And I completely hear what you're saying, and I think the word The word that comes to me is vulnerability. You know, I don't want to show people that we're vulnerable. And by asking or by reaching out, you basically say please answer me, and you have to wait, you know, and you don't know what that's going to be, and all those what those feelings will be or what they think, and it's kind of leaning into vulnerability. For example, right now in this season of my life, I'm in a very vulnerable place. The most vulnerable place the artists can be and is I always thought, is sharing their work. So when we were first you know, sharing some are or thirteenth there are all these things or even origin back in the summertime at the big film festival at Venice Film Festival in Toronto, that's a vulnerable time in the audience. Will they like my work? But I'm wrong. I had not experienced what is even more vulnerable than that, And that's right now with what's going on with the film and needing to ask people for help because film is not reaching. It doesn't have the money, it doesn't have a big marketing campaign, it doesn't have a big studio behind it. You're having a problem reaching the people who I made it for and so I feel very vulnerable. How do I do this? You know, I've used to be with big studios and Netflix and Warner Brothers and Disney and all of that, Like what do I do? You have to ask people for help? And I'm telling you, Sophia, I am struggling with picking up the phone and asking people who I know can help. Yes, I can't even bring myself omals gonna cry. I can't even bring myself to pick up the phone and say I need help. And so maybe about three days ago, my great brother and friend, David o'yelowell, he uh, he said, my sister, I'm going to pray for you, because you need to lift this up. You know too many people, and you've got to tell them what's going on, and you need to ask for help. And I guess what happened. I asked one or two people. I sent an email. I say, I'm feeling very vulnerable right now, this is what's going on with the movie. I need help. I asked two people, and within three days, fifteen different people who I did not even know, very famous people. I started to get these crazy emails. Hey, I saw your movie. What can I do to help? Hey, I've got this, Can I help well? By opening up right to tell the universe I need help, and to say that full throated yes, help started to rush in. I can't even believe it, and so I just say, I just I don't know who that hits right now. But in whatever way the fear was blocking off whatever was supposed to come to me, I was so afraid. I was holding this so tiny. As soon as I opened up and just said, please help me, this is what's going on it, you know, so many beautiful things have rushed in. And maybe it's because my eyes are open, maybe because I'm open to receiving it. Who knows. I don't know, but I do know that something fundamentally changed when I said the words out loud and when I and when I asked yes.
And isn't it interesting when you acknowledge what you need, when you finally, when you really finally tell that that deepest root of the root truth, yes, the world goes, oh, that's what you need, that's what you want here it is.
Yeah. I think that's what happened in a way, But also you change, you hear differently. Maybe help was always there and I was maybe things happening on the fact that I wasn't seeing. So there's like a mindfulness there, you know. I was reading, reading some spiritual spirit to work this morning, which is just about you know, every step you take, your take is a sacred step on this planet. And when you're rushing around in your head thinking about your grocery list, you're not observing the bird that disturbed and the butterfly that flew by, or the person that tried to smile at you, but you didn't see them and you didn't smile back. And now it's too late because they've passed you. And what that's why I would have done to them, right, And so it's just like being present, being mindful and and I think, you know, declaring where you are and knowing where you are for being able to say, I am vulnerable right now. I am scared. My movie is not reaching people that I put my whole heart into. I need I need some help getting the word out and to quiet and open my eyes to it. I saw people waving, hey, I'm over here, I can help. I can help. So who knows how it works, but it works.
It's beautiful.
I invite people to think about it for the for themselves.
And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think you will too. Well when you think about that, you know, pulling on that thread and seeing how much everything is connected, which is what Isabelle Wilkerson does in her book. You You have such a beauty. I mean, the entire movie is so beautiful. I don't quite have words for it, and I'm a person who has a lot of words. The scene where she's explaining to her editors what this book is going to be and they admit, we don't get it. But if you can do it, that's a book, you know. The That's something that also really inspired me when when you have to sort of admit I may not see it, but I want to. Yeah. And the profundity of her book carrying us all on this journey to say, the ways we're examining the world around us, the ways we're examining prejudice and tribalism. It's bigger than we think it is. It's bigger than we say it is. It's more insidious. It's a shape shifter.
Yeah. Absolutely.
I think about how you read that book and you spoke about it in the you know, you did a great article with the rap and not at all the point of this interview, but my god, that white dress. I was like, girl, come on, like you're out here speaking so poetically about the human condition, and also just like leaving not a crumb on the plate. I was like, this woman, I love her. But you talk in the article about how you read the book and it was so big you had to go back and read it again, and then you started to formulate this movie. And again it just speaks to the thing that as a fan of yours, I'm so impressed by and always drawn towards what it appears, at least from the outside and to be is your inquisitiveness and your desire to really follow things to the sort of origin of the path the road when you think about your story, because everybody who's at home listening is like, hey Va du Verne, the director, the award winning filmmaker, she's so incredible. I can't wait to hear what she has to say. Do you pull the thread of your inquisitiveness and your desire to tell story all the way back in hindsight when you look at yourself, through your life, through your childhood, were you were you sure you were destined to be a director when you were eight years old? Or was that an evolution for you, a calling or an evolution or maybe a mix of both.
Yes, no, thank you for the observations. I didn't pick up a camera until I was thirty two years old. So at the age of eight, nine, eighteen, twenty twenty one, you know, twenty seven, I had no idea i'd be a filmmaker. Isn't that wild? You couldn't have told me fifteen years ago that I would be working professionally as a filmmaker. There was no thought in my mind elementary school, in high school, in college, after college that one could make a living. Me, see a filmmaker? What's that? Oh, Steven Spielberg, he directs movies. That was it. I didn't even know anyone else who directed. Steven Spilberg and Spike Lee, those were two names I knew. If you asked me who directs movies, I couldn't tell you one woman, certainly not a black woman. I don't even know what that looks like at that age, and so you know that that's not even impossibility. I loved movies. I never thought I could work in an industry that made them. But then I became a publicist for movies, and I got sets, and I got to got to meet people who made movies, and I got to amplify movies and travel with with with with filmmakers and directors and hear them talk about their their films like I'm doing right now, and I started to say, Wow, this is this is this is something that people are making with their hands. It looks like magic when you watch a movie theater or but it's really like a handmade craft. Everyone just kind of coming together to do this thing, and isn't that amazing? And then one day, on one particular set, I said, well, can I be a part of it? Can't I want to make it. I want to make something. I have something to say, and started to make my short own short films at the age of thirty two thirty three. You know, I didn't go to film school. I didn't know anything about cameras. I didn't know how to direct actors. I didn't know how to block a scene. I didn't know how to edit. I don't know any of it. And I just embraced the joy of teaching myself and learning along the way, and the fact that you cut to moments like this where I get to talk to someone like you on the phone about my on the zoom, about my movie, and that movie will be in theaters and people will pay money and sit in seats to see what's in this head. It is. I won't even say dream because I didn't dream it. It's like a miracle, you know, that was made just for me, and it's an honor and a privilege. And uh, it's like magic to me because it was it was nothing that I ever imagined, you know, And it was it was, it was. It is a gift. It was given to me, and so I treasure it and I and I don't take it for granted, and you know, but certainly it was it was never anything that was that was planned. Now, once the magic presented itself, I'm going to work my butto like, once the miracles here, okay, how do I how do I take that gift and run with it? But gosh, I never saw it coming.
Yeah. Well, and and when you talk about not only what you didn't know, but what you didn't see, you know, the the lack of women occupying the director's chair, certainly women of color occupying the director's chair, You've broken boundary after boundary and barrier after barrier, and the I think people can forg get when they meet someone like you in the Accolade list is as long as it is that that there was no roadmap you You drew the map while you walked to the terrain.
You know, I followed steps that have been there before, but women whose names were not amplified. I'm a good point, not the first to do these things. I'm the first that the establishment has said, oh, well, we'll say her name, But Julie Dash, Nina Barnett's not alls, Casey Lemon's. You know, Kathleen Collins, you know, Maya Angelou, Debbie Allen. No women who had done all this stuff before, but never one, never was nominated, never was the cover of a magazine, never walked, never did all the all the things that have been decided that they're going my direction. That's why when people say first, this first, that you know it's bittersweet. Yes, I embrace the sweet part of it. Any artist wants to be acknowledged for the work. But the fact that it's the first and the film medium is over one hundred years old. The fact when I'm the first African American woman to ever compete in competition at Venice. It's the oldest film festival in the world. It's twenty twenty three. That's not a thing to celebrate. I don't think to say there's been an absence here, there's been an error here. And by saying first with cheers and collaps, what you're really expressing is we have not done this before, And to say it because the work wasn't worthy is untrue. To say we didn't open our eyes to its worthiness before is the fact. So you know, to be in occupy that position, I always like to really make sure I'm being clear and sober. We spoke about, you know, what it really is, and.
It speaks I think volumes about you sitting in that space with this film, because this film is talking about the complexity of these systems that often refuse to see, acknowledge or uplift the worth of people, the desire in some part of the human brain, or these toxic systems we've built to other people, yep, and how deep it goes and global it is and historical it is. As you were reading this book, how did you begin to wrap your mind around the calling the tug you felt to make it into a film to share this in a way that more and more people would see it, experience it, and understand it to be true.
Yeah, that's a beautiful connection between those two. Thank you. I you know, there's one thing that I know about myself, and I think it's important for us to be able to name the things that we do well. You know, it's hard to be able to do that, especially as women. You know, we we don't say I can do this, I can do this. Well, I'm good at that I can really do this. You know, I know how to do this. And one of the things that I've in trying to kind of own that for myself, to define and actually count the things I do know how to do the things I feel confident in, you know what I mean. I'm good at translation. You know, I'm good at being able to tell you a story in a way that might make a complex idea go down a little easier. You know. I know that I'm good at taking a huge, which unruly thing like criminalization and the prison industrial complex, and I know a way that works for me to make you feel what that is in thirteenth and when they see us, and the way for me is I'm gonna humanize it. I'm gonna take this huge thing, so big, so big, I can't even understand all the nuances. It's overwhelming. I don't even want to think about it. And I'm gonna bring it all the way down to one person, and I'm gonna show you how that thing works with this one person or these five boys who used to be known as the Central Park Five and their families. Let's just focus on them, and once you get to know them and you understand how what their hopes and dreams were and how it worked with them, WHOA, Now I feel like I understand the whole thing. It's the same with Caste. I can't write a movie about cast I don't know. It's so big cast How am I going to write a movie about that. I'm going to write a movie about a woman on a journey, a woman on an intellectual and emotional journey. I'm going to show you what she goes through as she's writing a book about cast and then you can go read that book. But I'm going to bring you into the heart of it through one person. And so that was really my approach to it, and that's when my approach on Selma I can't tell you the whole civil rights movement and all the motivations, but there was this one time that the black folk got together and say, we want this, and we're going to march every day until we get across this bridge and exert our influence and demand our rights. I can bring it down to that one that one piece, and so I think, you know, bite sized pieces, you know, humanizing the moment, humanizing the big issue. Those are things that I feel like I know how to do. And that's how I tackled this idea. After I read this book, I wanted more people to know about it. It was so big that when I finally decided, oh, I'll just focus on her telling us what it is, it became a viable, possible route. And I just followed that.
It's incredible for people listening at home who have not perhaps read the book yet, but who you hope the film inspires to do. So, can you can you explain for listeners what cast is the overarching connection that you're talking about drawing through Isabelle's story.
Yes, now I always preface this by saying I'm not isabel Wilkerson Junior. I'm a filmmaker. I'm not a scholar. I'm not an academic. I'm not an intellectual, and I might get this wrong. I'll tell you what I interpreted the book to be and what I understand casts to be, and what I put into this film, guest. Is the foundation that all of the rooms in the house sit on. The rooms in this house, the householl called our society. One room is racism, one room is sexism, one room is homophobia, one room is anti Semitism, one room is Islamophobia, one room ableism, agism, all the isn't. All the rooms are there, but the rooms sit on top of the foundation of this house, right, And the foundation that all sits on top of is called caste because cast is the very simple to understand idea one kind of person is better than another kind of person. Now, in this room it's skin color, and in this room it's age, and in this room it's gender, and in this room it's your sexual preference or your room. But they all sit on top of a foundation, right, And until you know that the foundation of all these isn't is the same, right, and you can't really make your room through the way that your way through the house, because the other rooms are dark. But once you understand that they all sit on top of this of expectation, all the lights in the house are on. Well you see that this room leads to this room and these are all connected. Now the lights in the house are on, I can make my way through. I can figure out how all this works, and I can see how they all touch each other with common walls. Right, And so you know we're in these silos. Everyone's in their dark room. And I think Cass turns the lights on and says, wait a minute, this is all the same. And whether it's happening in Nazi Germany or whether it's happening today, right, Nazi Germany, they're burning books today, they're banning books right, whether or not you're in you're in India and feudal India, or you're in the United States and you're Trayvon Martin. Underneath it all, someone is saying you are at the bottom, and I am at the top. And because I'm at the top, I will have power and status because you are at the bottom, based on random traits. And so I just think that I thought the idea was like a whoe idea, and I wanted to know about it, and it's more about it than the book goes into great detail. It's almost a five hundred page book. It's a thesis. I know that everyone's not going to read a five hundred page book, and I know that there are ideas in here that I might be able to express down to one person. And so that's what Origin is. The book is called cast the Origins of our discontents. An Origin just tries to boil that down through the journey of this woman. And I hope that people take from it a new idea about how to organize our thoughts about our place in the world and everyone around us.
That's so beautifully put helping people to understand how getting obsessed with the rooms can actually be a distraction to the truth of the foundation, and how the insidiousness of the foundation wants to create every outlet for it, every one of those isms to keep people fighting, to keep people figuring out. Well, if you, if we could criticize you for this, but someone could criticize me for this, maybe I should lean into the critique of the other over there, so you stop looking at me. We have to get to the root of the root.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, And you know when you think about you know, if the foundation was broken through, then everything in the room would fall apart. The room would fall through the floor. There's nothing there to hold it, right, Cass holds it all up. So you get to you know, and and this is not saying, well, there's no sexism and there's no racism. It's cast That's not what the what the material is saying. That's not what origin is saying. Anyway, you're saying these things exist and they sit on top of this other thing. And as long as you're only dealing with the room, as long as you're only dealing with the with the wound, and you're not dealing with the disease, right, then you're never going to be cured, you know, with the surface issue the symptoms, yes, right, you know I can. I can. I can have the flu and take nikul all day and treat the symptoms. But until I lay down, rest, you know what I mean, let my body heal, you know, take the appropriate medicines, push fluids like stop and and and get over that flu. I'm just I can go three weeks. I've done it before, go three weeks. I'm just I'm just keeping it going because I'm treating my symptoms, so I don't I don't sneeze, and I don't love as much. But the thing is like, how do you get to the core of what's wrong? You don't know what's wrong, you can't.
Yeah, how do you get under the symptoms into the sickness?
That's right?
And now for our sponsors correlation that I find fascinating, the exam that you're giving, And the greatest privilege I think we have as storytellers is when we get to take the specific and mirror across the microcosm of one character to the macrocosm of us and say, this specific is universal. Yes, you've taken You've taken Isabelle's story, her specific story about the most universal and harmful you know, big, big foundational sickness in human society, and you've made her her unique story so specific for everyone.
Yes, I'm glad. I think it's the power of art, that's the power of storytelling. You know. I remember seeing Philadelphia when I was in junior high and being so afraid of HIV as I had no idea what it was. I just knew I'd heard about it and then you could get it, and I didn't know when I was scared and people were sick and people were dying. And saw that film, and it was a film with two stars and Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks and this man had had at aides and and and and and he was talking about it and sharing and telling the story and through the story of one person, I came out of the film and I understood, Oh, I get it. I don't have to be afraid of this. It's it's uh, it's it is. This is happening to people. This is happening to people just like me. This is how I care for and I and I and I interact with people like this, and there's something, there's something worth seeing it through the eyes of an individual. And that's a big thing of what CASS talks about is the way that CASS function is by functions, is by dehumanizing. You know, if I put all these people into one bucket and I call them criminals, then they're criminals. So I could just move forward. But if I meet one and if I talk to one, and if I know one of those persons, those people's individual stories, their dreams, their life, their mom they're you know what I mean, They're there, They're feelings, then well he deserves a chance, or let's give her a chance, you know, not everybody, just the one that you know. And and that's what we need to kind of move out of, is this idea of dehumanizing people by putting them in a big group because it's easier to disregard them. And now that that big group, within that big group are individual hearts and minds, right, individual people with individual stories. That is how cast happens. You dehumanize a whole group of people. And it's to say women are flighty, you know, uh, you know, redheads are so crouchy. They never want to talk about their red hair, like they're just they're they're they they're just they're they're they never want to embrace it. Or you know, people work in the entertainment industry are this way, or you know those people who live on that side of town, they're just so stuck up. I hate to go over there, or you know what you know, vegans, Oh my god, it's just annoying, you know what I mean. It's like, yeah, whatever the group is, and we group them all together and there's no nuance, there's no humanity. We do it every day, Yes, we do it all the time. These are the things that the film asks us to think about.
Yes, And in researching some of the places that you take us the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, to the National Memorial for Peace Injustice in Montgomery, Alabama, the artistry of a memorial to people that we lost in America, to lynching echoing the architecture of this memorial, to the Jews murdered, and the Holocaust, both of them, both of them I find breath taking experientially because you sink into them. Before you know it. You are, you are inside and underneath and all around you. You're being confronted with these visceral, physical manifestations of people who we've lost because of that tribalistic instinct to other to want to be superior too. And reading about them in preparation for today led me to this piece of writing by a man named Primo Levy who said, to sync is the easiest of matters. He's talking about surviving in Auschwitz, and he said, then it is enough to carry out all the orders one receives, to only eat the ration, to observe the discipline, and work the camp. And it's that thing where if people are grouped. Suddenly you can go along with whatever harm is being done to the group because you feel like, well, I'm the one person kind of against this other thing, or I'm the one person trying to avoid the harm happening to this big group. I don't know that I can do anything about all of that. And to constantly remind yourself of the humanity of other people is how you pierce the veil, you burst the illusion. It's such a big conversation to bring to the forefront. It's a big reminder to give to people in a time where we feel perhaps more viciously siloed than ever. And maybe we feel it because we see it because we're more digitally connected than ever. But as you're bringing this incredible piece of work to light, you someone that so many people at home I imagine, go, well, she's made it, she's done it. She can do anything she wants. You've been really vulnerable, to use your earlier term about how hard it was to get this movie made. How For some reason, and maybe it's because we're in an ear of I don't know, superheroes and fantasy. People didn't want to make this movie. Funding this movie was difficult. You had to tighten it and shoot it in thirty seven days, you know, in multiple countries, no less. But you you didn't give up on it and you made this movie. What what is that journey like? Is it? Is it something you don't let go of because you know the importance of the work and it feels like a calling. Is it something you don't let go of because you're like, by damn, I'm going to get this movie made. And anybody who told me I can't watch me? Is it a little bit of both?
Well, first of all, you are such a smarty pants. I love it you are you are. Thank you. I love the rigor and the robust nature of your questions, and I can hear the research and the preparation, and it's a it's a pleasure. It's rare. I've been doing a lot of interviews, okay, So it's such a such a delight to be in conversation with you. So thank you, Thank you so much.
That's really kind.
Yes. And also, you know you're the first person that's pointed out the monuments in the film. You know there are three three I meant to make sure that in the three interlocking spaces or times that we explore, you know, the American South and segregation, the Holocaust in Germany, and then the cast system in India. I went to make sure that we went to a monument, a museum that represented each in the modern day. We're at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. We were at the Bedcar Museum in Delhi, and we were at the National Lyunching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. And we went all of these spaces. The author in the film is visiting these actual spaces in her research. And now one person since September has asked me a question about it, except you, so thank you, Mari. I integrated it, but yes, it was. It was a journey to get this made. We were shooting this time last year. You know, this is this is. This has been a fast turnaround in terms of the film. I wrote it for two years. We started raising money for it last summer. We started making it this time last year in January, and now we're in January and it's coming out. So if you take out the writing, it's been a year long process. Now, while that is it's a long time, it's certainly a drop in the bucket to what it takes to make most films. So this has been a very propulsive, very energetic process. It's been full till every hour of every every waking hour of the day for a year, and that's been intense. But really, when I think about it, it's been a swift journey in the grand scheme of things. And it has been one where doors have opened and ways have been made that where it looks like there is no way and there is no door, And it has taken holding hands with people who believe in it and believe in the vision. And because I've done this a few times before, I have some tricks of my sleeve as to how to, you know, keep moving in a certain direction. But I look back and I think, wow, we did this in a year and a half, from raising the money to being in theaters a year and a half, and that is not done. And so what that tells me is with the right intention and with a focus and a mission to be deliberate and focusing on the things you have instead of the things you don't have. Right, I don't have a studio giving me all the money I need. I don't have the seventy days that I should have to do this. I don't have this I don't have that. Okay, I raised enough money for thirty seven days. Okay, I know these people who want to help me, and I'm going to focus on them, not the people who are saying, don't do it. By focusing what I had instead of not, instead of focusing what I don't have, I shifted my attention and I green light my greenlit myself. And whether you are making a film where you're doing whatever, green light yourself, green light yourself, say I'm going I'm doing it. Watch me, And you don't have to know all the steps, but you can take one. I take one step, and then you can figure out the next and the next, and one day you're going to turn around and there's more behind you that's in front of you, and you're almost there or you're there. And so for me, the steps it was about a year and a half. But every day I took a step, even if I didn't know which way, or even with if it was just a little one said I have to do something today to move this forward. And that's the way we approached it. And we didn't approach it from a place of lack. I didn't let the words come out of my mouth every day, I don't have this or what's going on? And I moved it, We all moved it forward. When I stopped was about a month and a half or so ago where I started to say those words, what's going on? Why aren't people coming in? Why don't want people know about the movie? Why can't I get the word out on this movie? What? And I started to get into this vulnerable dark place because I'm using language and I'm feeling in the lack and over the holidays, I just I just was was blessed and fortunate enough to start to come out of that haze and to start to change my language and to look at what I had. And I'm just telling you the ways in which we talk to ourselves, that's the life we're living. You know what I mean. You're either talking to yourself in your head all day from a place of lack and woe is me? And why isn't this and why didn't this happen? And why is this happening to me? Or you're paying this is happening for me? This is what I do have, This is what I am going to do, this is what's going to happen today. I'm going to take a step. And I'm not saying this to be preaching. I'm just saying you asked me a questions. This is my experience, Like I have experienced the dark side of it, and I've experienced when I look up and like whoa, I'm moving. I am moving. And so this film was all about moving and moving forward and sitting here with you today and just talking about the time. I haven't really thought about the time, but like on this day last year, I was calling action on set, and now a year later, I'm here talking about the movie comes out on the nineteen. That's that's that's that's beautiful.
It's a yeah. And for people at home, I mean you said it's it's a quick turnaround and the energy behind it and that propulsion. It's about the movie, but it's also about you. You're talking about these transformative principles, and I'm so grateful you're willing to share them because someone at home who's listening to us talk today is going, well, shit, if Iva du Verne, can you know, hit a hurdle and figure out how to navigate around it, maybe I can too. Maybe I can go make my short, maybe I can start that book I've always wanted to write, maybe maybe I can have this hard conversation with my family about something that I know we need to change, whatever it is professional, personal. The reminder that at every stage of your life, no matter what wrong of the ladder you've made it up to, you will be tested, You will have to read examine your commitments, capabilities, creativities, and that you can always find a workarounds.
That's profound, I hope, so you know, I think, and the workaround I just want to remind people is the steps are small. You get the rebel and the small steps, you know. So over the holidays, when I was feeling down about certain things, certain aspects professionally, and I remember something, my aunt Denise said, clean up. So I looked around and my environment reflected what was in my head. Whatoes were on the chair that I hadn't hung up, you know what I mean. My shoes were all off, the shelf rowers were open, you know what I mean. Like I was getting out of it and not making it, you know what I mean. And I just looked around. It's like, let me just when I say this, because it's the small step. If you want all this to happen, get yourself together, So I just start to clean up my room and hang up the clothes. I can't do all the things I want to do out in the world right now. What can I do right now? I'm going to clean that closet. I'm going to hang these clothes. I'm going to wash these clothes. This is what I can do right now. And guess what. Tomorrow, I'm gonna go take a walk, I'm gonna call a friend. I'm gonna pull myself out of this. And then the next day I'm gonna make that phone call. And then the next day I'm gonna buy those ads. And the next day I'm gonna be less bronable and call a friend and say I need help. And the next day I'm gonna be with Sophia Bush on a podcast, and the next day my movie's coming out, and like and look now I'm up and out. I'm out of my bed. Yeah what I mean. But just to tell people, it's so it feels so big when you're down or you feel like you're stuck. Just start small, start with whatever you can. You know, there's something to be said for momentum. You know, get some success today. What can you succeed at today I hung up my clothes. There are no clothes on the chair. The only one that puts closed on the chair. Is it just me? Because I know it's all of us.
Any any chair or bench or we couch in a bedroom, if you're lucky enough to have room for it just becomes the place the clothes go.
That's right, you know, but you know what I mean, It's just it's just I think sometimes we talk about these big things and how you do it, and it's just good to hear. Just start where you are with a small thing and let that propel you to the next.
We'll be back in just a minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors. Did it feel like that? You know, this is the microcosm of your room and how you talk to yourself and you know the words you use. It's like why we talk about spelling. You cast spells with your words, Like how are you talking to yourself? How are you feeling yourself? And as a storyteller, as that gets out and gets into the big you know macro of these projects that you make, these big stories that are the undertaking at the basis of a film like this, how do you do the cleanup? How do you figure out what the next right thing is in a movie this big? Because this movie is made up of a lot of hard stories to watch. You know, when you talk about these these monuments, what we get to see as viewers of this film and go to Berlin with you, and go to Alabama with you, and go to India with you, and see inside of the narrative story of Isabel's life and her family. You know, I heard myself. I realized the sound I was hearing was the sound of myself gasping when she was standing above that window into the ground, looking at all the empty bookshelves to symbolize all the books that were burned in Nazi Germany, and you had to recreate that. You had to burn books. You you recreated and brought the audience into the belly of slave ships. These are these are the most horrific things that we've done to each other through the course of humanity. How do you figure out like which which is the next right step to? How do you how do you undertake something like that? Where do you where do you begin as a as a filmmaker, as a director to to lead us that way?
Thank you for the question. I think you know, for me, I'm not telling stories of trauma. I'm telling stories of triumph. In order to tell a story of triumph, you have to overcome something. So I have to show what's being overcome. And I think about, well, how do I show that in a way that humanizes it? How do I make people empathize with this so that they really feel the triumph? You know, how do I portray what's being overcome? And that's really what I where I start. So if I want to show this brilliant black woman, author, academic, and I want to share with you look at what a dream in a mirrorle school she is, I have to show maor right, I have to show you why she's such a genius and a wonder and what went into that. And I have to show her personal loss, and I have to show where she comes from and the idea is about her and people like her that make it a lot less likely that she would occupy the space that she occupies. So I try to build it that way. You know, you know, if it's Selma, and you know, doctor King is out and he's leading the margins, he's doing and he's doing all the things, he's just a figurehead, unless you know that Corretta and the children are home missing him, and what he sacrificed to be out on the front lines for all people was time with his family. We don't think about that. He's a symbol and he's up there and he's doing his thing. He's a human being and what that did to him and what that did to her, and what I did to their family, right, And so as I'm building stories, I'm always looking at making it deeply personal. You know, in this film, you follow Trayvon Martin, who, for those that don't know, was a boy, a teenager, who was stalked and killed by I don't know, a random citizen who thought that he looked suspicious as he walked through the neighborhood and he shot him and killed him. I'm going to give you some time in the film to get to know him a little bit before that happened, so that he's not just a statistic that you hear on the news. You knew him, and you knew what he was talking about on the phone, and you knew what he bought from the store, and you knew what his plans were for the next day. So now when he's taken from you you care. So that's how I try to build the films. When you ask how it is, how do I get to the personal place, the human place? How do I break cast humanize whatever idea and not let you lump everything in, but get down to a place where you're on a feeling level. That's really how I approach you as I'm writing and I'm directing, is you know, not to just go for the spectacle, but to try to get to the singularity of an experience, because when you get singular, you really are universal.
Right, Yeah. And what strikes me about what you're saying is that you can't be fully human without being fully honest. And it's not lost on me that we read about the death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of a man who I shan't name because I don't think he deserves the time. But that young boy was taken from his family and from all of us in Florida, where we see a governor who, as you referenced earlier, wants to ban books, who doesn't want us to read about our history. And you see this across the country, and it strikes me as a form of real insanity because it's a denialism of who we are. You know, how can you govern a state where you're going to try to stop the teaching of what happened last week? Do you if you're going to ban the books about history, do you also stop the newspapers from writing about what's happening?
Like? How far does it go? It goes to well want us not to learn history, so we don't know how far it goes, but where it leads. These are the exact same steps that led to the Holocaust. Yes, the same steps. I show it to you in the movie the book before that the camps opened. The thing did is let's take away knowledge, let's take away ideas. Let's make people afraid to talk about it. Let's make people afraid to raise their voices. And once we take away the knowledge and we make them afraid, and they make sure that they don't talk to each other and they're not speaking up. Now we can do anything, Yeah, do anything. And why would they do it? It's cast. The more that they do it, the more power and status tilts their way. The way to break cast is to set, is to raise your voice, to assert yourself as a human being, as an individual right and to collectively raise your hands, and the power then tilts back. And we've seen it country. It teeters and it tilts. But now it's tilting so far away from justice. The fear is that it's going to get so far that it's going to take generations to tilt back. We are coming on the We are at the end of a glorious period in which every decade gains were made to humanize the lives of more kinds of people. Yes, and status and power shifting to a place where it was shared by more kinds of people, never fully but tilting more in that direction, bending more towards justice, as doctor King would say, the arc of justice, bending towards equity building, bending towards dignity building, towards an acknowledgment of different kinds of people. It's going the other way now, right, And the reason why I wanted this film to be out this year, this year, so that we can engage one another about this in other countries in an election year, in a kind of like this, we would be taking to the streets every day. There would be no dinner table of conversation that's not about this. But we are fatigued. We're exhausted. We are spoiled as Americans. We are privileged enough to think that the lives that we enjoy can continue in this way. And we don't even see the danger up ahead. Why because we're not looking at history. This is what happened already. I'm just trying to wave a flag and say, folks, please, please, let's here and wake up to what's going on. And so you know, the film is an invitation to interrogate our interior lives, right, But also by doing that, you cannot stay sheep. You cannot stay following by interrogating your tirior lives and asserting yourself as a human being, an individual, you cannot allow this happen. The more you allow it, the less you are leaning into your humanity. Because this is an in you humane time that we're in accepting of the stripping of rights of all kinds of people. In this moment, you and I cannot even decide what we want to do with our own bodies, not make that decision legally. Right in this moment, there are people who exist in different ways, who their way of life, way of thinking is considered illegal. Those freedoms that we think we enjoy, the illusion of that is just going to slip away, slip away more and more. We have a candidate right now who is honest, face bold face said out loud, repeatedly, this is what I'm going to do when I'm back in power. If you didn't like it last time, I'm just going to tell you exactly what I'm going to do this time. Because I'm mad and I'm back.
And saying this time it'll be worse.
He's saying it every day, every day, still not listening, and so it's just it is. We're going to look up and it's going to be too late. Yeah, And that is why I didn't wait for studios, and that is why we got this done in a year. It is to say, even if a small group of people see this film and become activated by it, maybe it's a spark. Maybe it's a spark that lights a fire that we need to have roaring at this point.
What I love and thank you. What I love about what you're saying is that in order to triumph, you have to be honest about where you come from. Yes, in order to defeat harm, you have to be honest about what harm has looked like. Yes, and you are reminding people that by being willing to explore things honestly, they can be more human. I wept, I'm I mean ugly cry for the entire second half of the film. I was exhausted at the end of it in the best way. I felt more human waking up the day after watching your movie, less less exhausted by the state of the world, more inspired to keep going for us, and that I really believe is the power of honest storytelling. So I want to thank you not only for sharing it with us, but for sharing the reasoning behind it with us so that we can be reminded of how powerful we are.
There's no better compliment that you can give me, no better gift, because that is what I hope people get from it, that they you know, there's a lot being made. I cried in the movie. It has hard stuff. You showed this and this, but you come out feeling the way that you just talked about, come out feeling awake, activated, curious, curious about yourself, about wanting to read, wanting to know more what, Yes, you know. And so that's the hope, is that it's a spark and you know, yeah, you got to watch some tough stuff. But the feeling at the end, you know, those are cleansing tears. You're crying, Yes, you know what I mean. Those are clearing away. And I just hope more people embrace it and allow themselves to feel that.
Oh, I believe it. I will go ahead and say to all of our friends at home, who I know, your souls are beating a little louder as mine are after spending an hour with Ava, I'm excited to see I always joke or not joke. I guess I uplift that a lot of the people who I've aggregated online have come in because they want to help. They believe in helping helpers. I call them all my first responders, and I just can't wait to see how many people who listen to this show are like out here publicizing this movie. I want to remind everybody at home that you, no matter how big you think your platform is, you have one. If it's five family members or five hundred people or fifty thousand people online, people gravitate to you because they trust you, and I would love for all of you to share about this movie. I obviously want you all to go see this movie. I believe you all will be transformed by this movie. And I know I speak on behalf of myself and all of you when I think the incredible miss to Vernee for taking time to be with us today.
Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate this conversation. I'll appreciate this call to action that you just made. And I'll say, Seat sixteen is a very simple thing. We made it up and for sixteen books, it ad buys a seat for a young person and they get a one year subscription to masterclass.
Oh my god, Dreamboat of a Human is just a way to you know, share it with you know, kids who won't buy the ticket, but they make us something for free.
I will never make a dime from this movie. I haven't even said that anywhere. I did not get paid to make this movie. I put my salary into the movie, right, no amount of money. We have to pay back the people who gave us the money to make the movie. Right, So I'll make money on this movie. It's not about money for me. It's about this time that we're in the message that the movie shares mission urgent. It's a mission. This is urgent. It's urgent, and I don't want to be able I don't want to look back and say, what did I do? I didn't I didn't do enough. This is what I can do, you know, and everyone has the thing that they can do. If you can cook and figure out how the cooking serves you know, the moment that we're in. And if you, if you, if you've got five family members, if you have well, if you, if you do, do a walkathon, put a new put a couple of books out on your porch for folks, whatever you can do to move us forward in this time a little bit more towards justice and community for all doing this is what I could do. Yes, So what what Sophia's saying? It's not about any kind of there's no corporation getting this money, there's none. It is about how can you amplify the message, and if it's not for this movie, find a way to wake up the people around you and to wake up yourself, you know, find a way to hang the clothes, find a way to clear a path, find a way to be less fatigue and exhausted, so that we can we can bloom, and we can blossom together, because right now we're wilting, but I believe we can. We can shine a light and turn things around. And now's the time.
Well here's to the blooming yeah say man, thank you, thank you, my friend,
