Aunjenue Ellis-Taylor, Daveed Diggs chat about “Nickel Boys,” reform school exposé drawing early acclaim

The dramatic film “Nickel Boys,” directed by RaMell Ross, takes Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel “The Nickel Boys” and has made the book into uniquely visual cinematic art, resulting in one of the most acclaimed movies of 2024.& Orion Pictures, a subsidiary of Amazon MGM Studios, is releasing “Nickel Boys” in theaters on Friday. “The Nickel Boys” book is loosely based on the real-life story of the Florida School for Boys, also known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, which was a state-operated reform school in Marianna, Florida, from 1900 to 2011. This reform school was shut down after lawsuits and investigations uncovered that children were abused at the school for decades. Pictured from left to right: RaMell Ross, Ethan Herisse, Brandon Turner, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and Daveed Diggs at a press conference and screening of “Nickel Boys.” Photo credit: Orion Pictures. Ross co-wrote the “Nickel Boys” screenplay with Joslyn Barnes, one of the producers of the movie, which takes place from the late 1950s to 2003. In “Nickel Boys,” Elwood Curtis (played by Ethan Herisse) is an intelligent and socially conscious 16-year-old who’s about to turn 17, when he is wrongfully convicted of car theft and sent...