Two young actors find a safe space to explore brutality with ‘Nickel Boys’

When Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson got the call for “Nickel Boys,” they each sent in an audition tape and waited. Herisse’s biggest role to that date was as Yusef Salaam of the Central Park Five in Ava DuVernay’s “When They See Us”; Wilson’s was as Brandon Durrett, the charismatic point guard on a basketball team coached by Ben Affleck in “The Way Back.” And while the film’s source material was the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, its director, RaMell Ross, was making his debut and it didn’t seem like a particularly buzzy project.

“I read [the book] during the audition process,” recalls Herisse, “and was like, ‘Oooh, I really hope I get to be a part of this. This is amazing stuff.’”

Set in the 1960s, “Nickel Boys” is based on the real-life events of Dozier School, a Florida reform school called Nickel Academy in the book. An investigation uncovered torture and abuse that led to the deaths of about 100 boys, many buried in unmarked graves. Herisse plays Elwood, the only child of a single mom (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), who is headed for his first year of college. When he unknowingly gets in a stolen car, the driver is arrested and Elwood is sent to Nickel. There he befriends the gregarious Turner, played by Wilson.

A poetic study in identity, the first half of the film is shot from Elwood’s point of view. We catch glimpses of his reflection in windows but never really see him until he arrives at Nickel and meets Turner, to whom the POV suddenly switches. It’s only when he is recognized by a peer that the audience sees Elwood.

Both actors noticed that the script was peppered with POVs, but neither grasped what that meant until they got to the set, where they were asked to wear a camera rig and often stood alongside a cameraman while delivering their lines.

“We weren’t wearing the rig the whole time,” Herisse says. “It was mainly the camera operators. They would coach you [on] how to move; definitely an adjustment. It was [about] finding different ways to commit and to be present for other actors you’re in the scene with.”

An Oscar nominee for his documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” Ross takes what might have been a familiar narrative about young men falling victim to racism during the Jim Crow era and conjures a poetic and artistically daring film.

Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson star in “Nickel Boys,” a poetic and artistically daring film from RaMell Ross.

(Orion Pictures)

“There was no ego,” Wilson recalls. “He’d really lean into how much you need to collaborate to make this possible. He made everyone feel appreciated. Learning in hindsight how much was asked of him, that he can make everyone feel so seen and present, I’m realizing how special that is. We would finish a take and he’d say, ‘Oh, great! Let’s do something different’ ... which was such a gift to give you this space to explore this thing.”

Despite the caliber of the source material, Ross too had freedom with his choices. A lengthy missive he wrote to Whitehead about his plans for the adaptation was met with a two-word response: “Good luck.”

“I think for RaMell it was very freeing because it allowed him to explore this idea he had of shooting in POV,” Herisse said. “It gave him the creative license he needs.”

With Oscar buzz already circulating for the film, to be released Dec. 13 in New York and Dec. 20 in L.A., the actors’ phones have started ringing. “Nothing crazy, it’s been mostly like meeting people. We get a lovely handshake in that moment,” Herisse says about a town that will meet with you to death. “Hopefully, that leads to more opportunities. I think that it would be really incredible if the buzz turns into nominations for a movie like this. It’s already a unique movie told in a different way, so it’s asking a lot of the audience.”

For Wilson, there’s only one fan he’s set on satisfying. “My mom would be hyped! This would be the moment she could point at and she would be proud. I’d be very curious how a wider audience would react to this, even someone like my mom, who doesn’t watch films that are asking you to actively engage.”

Although both actors knew they were involved in something unusual, they had no way of knowing what “Nickel Boys” ultimately would look like or whether it would succeed or fail artistically and commercially.

Early on, Herisse says, “All I wanted was to watch it and feel like you’re able to see all the love that was put into it while making it, because it was truly one of the most joyful experiences of my life. And then I watched it and I was like, ‘This is really incredible’ and was deeply moved and proud, with all the other feelings of watching it for the first time. And after that, I wanted to share it with people.”