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A Wrinkle In Time is finally out in theaters, and I want to share the personal interview we had with director Ava Duvernay. According to wikipedia.com, Ava Duvernay is director, producer, screenwriter, film marketer, and film distributor. At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, DuVernay won the U.S. Directing Award: Dramatic for her second feature film Middle of Nowhere, becoming the first African-American woman to win the award. For her work in Selma (2014), DuVernay was the first black female director to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award.With Selma, she was also the first black female director to have her film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for her film 13th (2016). She is clearly a woman of many first…but thats not all!

A Wrinkle in Time, has a budget exceeding $100 million, making her the first black woman to direct a live-action film with a budget of that size. So what an honor it was to interview such a well accomplished woman in the film industry. Breaking so many boundaries, and I am positive A Wrinkle In Time, will produce more than just a wrinkle in the box office as well! Check out the interview with her below! 

As she walked in she said, “Mommy bloggers. Go mommy bloggers. You all are about to go on the gram!” She was so excited that she did put us on her Insta-story. So fun!

Ava express her feelings on her first film made for children

Yeah, I just really wanted to make a film for kids right now. I don’t have children. I don’t have children by choice. I always said that my film are my children. You know, I put my blood into them. It’s really what has my name on it. It’s what I’ll leave behind in the world and so to be able to make something specifically for kids today, uh, something that I hope endures for kids, you know, for a long time to come was very emotional to me. so it was important that, you know, I, you know, we approached the story in a way that we were always thinking of young people but then also with the young people that we had on set making sure that they felt safe, included and that their voices were being heard because I was really listening to them a lot about what’s cool, what do the kids wanna see, you know.

Ava talks about what she learned about kids as she was making A Wrinkle In Time

What they said surprised me.They liked not to be talked down to and a lot of times in kids movies, you know, they’re always trying to — I found this with some of the people you know, at the studio that were like it should be more jokes, kids like to laugh. Yes, kids like to laugh but kids also like to think. They like to feel and so, you know, at first 30 minutes of the movie it’s just about Meg. There’s no magic, you know. For 30 minutes we make you sit down and sync into the heart of a young girl and she’s trying to figure out things, struggling at school, struggling with the bullies, struggling with an absentee father, all those things.

Ava explains why she felt the importance of making this a very inclusive film

Mindy (Kaling) said something really incredible. She said that she loved sci-fi growing up but sci-fi didn’t love her. She never got to see herself in it as a girl but particularly as a brown girl, specifically as an Indian girl with dark skin she said and so to be able to in a film where there are representations of her, representations like Storm was so important to her. I think it was the same thing for me, you know. Storm’s a little girl from the inner city. We’ve moved the book to be in the inner-city, from the book to the movie.

Ava shares how she knows the name of every person (cast or crew) on the filming of A Wrinkle in Time

Ava DuVernay and Storm Reid on the set of Disney’s A WRINKLE IN TIME.

I mean why would not? I used to be a crew member. I used to be a publicist and I would on to sets and I would be only one of the few women and one of the few black people and probably the only black woman so many times but regardless of who I was like so many directors just didn’t know their crew members’ names. I thought how disrespectful. These people were here before you got out of your trailer. They set up the trailer that you can go into. You know, this is someone’s father or mother who’s been here since five o’clock in the morning. You know, everyone’s working hard. Like how do you walk passed people and not know their name? And yet that’s the culture of our industry.

It’s the culture of a lot of industries in this country. It’s like, you know, the people that are in quote on quote higher positions just don’t even, you know, my father recently departed laid carpet and flooring in people’s home and he would come and he’s the kind of guy that you would pass by, just pass him by. My aunt, Denise, who passed away some years ago who I really know would love this movie was a nurse at night. She would take the bus. She was the kind of person you would just pass by and no one knows how extraordinary they were. They were great people. You can’t pass people by. Sorry.

::At this point it gets emotional for everyone::

Ava continues: You have to know people’s names. You have to treat people with weakness. You have to so I’m glad she said that. I’m sorry I got emotional. I feel like I’m talking to my mom here. My god. I called my mom the other morning. I said mommy, I’m going to the junket. I’m gonna share the movie for the first time with people who are gonna see the movie for the first time. I don’t know what they’re gonna think. She said Ava, you did your best. Like a mom. You did your best. I was like a little girl again. You did your best, babe and, you know, your best is good enough and so pretty. It’s just like you. You’re the best girl in the world. All those things. I was like thanks, mom. So, that’s the energy I feel. That’s why I’m emotional ‘cause I am a hardcore director, okay. I’m not gonna cry in here with you guys.

Too Late Ava…at this point we were all wiping away tears…

How Ava expresses how she saw a lot of herself in the Meg Murry (Storm Reid) character

A little girl from the inner-city who wears glasses, who doesn’t know how fantastic she is and I related to that. I remember being that. I remember dreaming about all the things I wanted to be and not knowing if I could be them. Not seeing anything in my world beyond my mom who loved me and my family who loved me to tell me you can do it and nothing else said you can do it. Nothing else said you can do it. School didn’t say you can do it. Society didn’t say you could do it. Nothing said you could do this. Nothing said you can be here and direct this movie. You know, nothing said that you can do any of it and so you have to find it in yourself and that’s what this book says. That’s what the movie is saying and so I related to Meg very much, very much.

Director Ava DuVernay with Storm Reid on the set of Disney’s A WRINKLE IN TIME.

Ava deeply describes how this film is more than just another kid movie

I really, I really want it to be a seed that blossoms into something beautiful in young people about the way that we treat each other and the way that we see ourselves and the way that we’re seen and so that’s really what I’m hoping. I mean movies have the power to do that. You know, movies have the power to do things that politics doesn’t even do. You know, it reminds me of the time, you know, when kids who had HIV would swim in a pool and they’d drain the pool ‘cause people didn’t even understand what that was and it wasn’t CDC reports or politicians that changed people’s minds about that.

You know, it was stories of human beings going through it that made people think oh, okay I don’t have to be afraid of this and so stories are powerful and so I believe in this story. I believe in this story to be able to plant seeds with young people at this time. There’s a lot of division and darkness in the world to be able to say you could be a light and that if your individual light shines, you know, Oprah always says it’s easier to for one light to illuminate a dark room. So if we were the darkness in this room and someone just turned on one candle there would be light in the air. But it’s really hard for light to drown out– darkness to drown out light.

Like I said one candle could light up this whole room, right? And so the idea that we could each be that light and if there were more of us to think that way, if we start with young people now like The Thirteenth. Part of what I want to do with that documentary is say understand how the system works now. If we all really understand it then maybe we can do something about it then maybe we can do something about it. It’s like if you could say to kids, if you could understand that you alone, you alone can make a difference just in your world. You don’t have to be Gandhi. You don’t have to be King. You don’t have to be Malala. In your day, when you go to school, you know, when you see a kid being bullied, you know, and you don’t talk about people and you behave the right way and you grow up to be empathetic, whole hearted person in the world you have to start right now.

Ava shares how filming A Wrinkle In Time expanded her creativity

Yeah well money helps. Money helps a lot. We made Selma for 20 million dollars and this was like a 120 million dollars and so when you make Selma and you try to do period clothes and, you know, violence and crowd shots and Dr. King and the clothes and the cars it’s expensive to do period films because you can’t just go out and get them off the street. Like they’re very specialty items so it’s hard to do that movie at this price point, that price point and a real change when I came here and I remember one day I was saying god, my producer, Jim Whittaker who I love, so important to call out the men who are just really good guys.

Ava DuVernay and Storm Reid on the set of Disney’s A WRINKLE IN TIME.

Jim Whittaker, I was like god, you know, this is gonna be a good shot, you know. The camera’s not here but it’d be a bigger, better if I had a second crane and doing this. He was like oh, you want a second crane?  Because like did you, were you saying you want a second crane? I said no, I was just can I have a second crane? He’s like yeah, just tell us what you want and I was like I want a second crane. So, really cool and it was just like once I had to free myself to say I can ask them what I want and there’s actually budget to do it.

I remember on Selma there’s a scene where they’re crossing the bridge and, you know, the bad folks in the town, the racists people have these horses attack the marchers and in real life it was 57 horses but I remember the producer that day said Ava, we just don’t have enough money. You’ve got five horses. I said how am I gonna make five horses look like 57 horses and they were like this is all we’ve got. And so we made it work with five horses but like this is the kind of movie where if I needed 57 horses there were gonna be 67 horses just in case Teddy got sick. Like it was like that. It was like that.

Ava expresses who are the people who would truly resonate with A Wrinkle In Time

You know, like all of you I could see it in your eyes. It’s like I could see the girls in you that were, you know, that was something in you. There’s some adults you can still see that light in and some you just can’t where it’s gone. The child in them is gone and so this is for kids and for people who still have a kid inside of them.

MORE INTERVIEWS & MY WRINKLE IN TIME REVIEW

Oprah Winfey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling (The Mrs.) interview here

Storm Reid (Meg Murry) interview here

Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Dr.Kate Murry) interview here

My Wrinkle In Time Review here

From visionary director Ava DuVernay comes Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” an epic adventure based on Madeleine L’Engle’s timeless classic which takes audiences across dimensions of time and space, examining the nature of darkness versus light and, ultimately, the triumph of love. Through one girl’s transformative journey led by three celestial guides, we discover that strength comes from embracing one’s individuality and that the best way to triumph over fear is to travel by one’s own light

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“A WRINKLE IN TIME” opens in U.S. theaters now!

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