UB Spotlight: Ethan Herisse + Brandon Wilson Talk 'Nickel Boys'

“Nickel Boys” hits theaters December 13th, via Orion Pictures.

Set in Tallahassee, Florida in 1962, against the backdrop of the flourishing Civil Rights Movement, “Nickel Boys” emotional center is Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse), a teenager bent on dreaming a world bigger than the circumscribed existence of his segregated community of Frenchtown.

High-achieving and curious, he’s full of scrap and optimism. Energized by the Movement and the promises set aloft by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s soaring oratory, Elwood is on the cusp of adulthood, mere days away from attending his first college classes, when an innocent wrong-place/wrong-time misstep reroutes and shatters the course of his life.

The film shadows the harrowing story of two Black boys — Elwood and Turner — negotiating their hard-time served in a severe reform school, while attempting to claim, protect and nurture their own humanity.

Starring; Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.

Directed by RaMell Ross, screenplay by RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes and based on the book “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead.

“‘We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness.’ The record went round and around like an argument that always returned to its unassailable premise, and Dr. King’s words filled the front room of the shotgun house.”

— Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys