A grieving mother uses her pain to open the eyes of the world to the horrors of racism in Director Chinonye Chukwu’s biographical drama, Till.
Based on the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley, Chukwu’s film recounts how she was relentless in her pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, who, in 1955, was lynched while visiting his cousins in Mississippi.
On October 9, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Chukwu discussed the making of Till during a Q&A moderated by Director David Oyelowo (The Water Man). She also spoke about the film during a conversation moderated by Director Radha Blank (The Forty-Year-Old Version) following the New York screening on October 23.
During the Los Angeles conversation, Chukwu spoke about casting Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till-Mobley and directing her powerful performance.
“When I cast actors — particularly actors in leading roles — I tend to look at this: can they communicate this story with their eyes? Can they really tell the story, what is going on underneath and in between the words without saying the words? Can they hold and command a screen? Danielle checked all those boxes. She looked at this performance as service, as an offering and dove into the research. We spent several months before shooting going through every single emotional and psychological beat and nuance of the script and would talk every single day about the research and discoveries. The rehearsals were largely about getting into the emotional psychology of the characters and what's going on in the silences. For the Director session for the callback before she could be officially cast, we went through the scene where she's looking at Emmet’s body and there's no dialogue. We talked about it in terms of where Mamie begins emotionally at the beginning and where she is by the end of that scene and what are the emotional beats that lead her to that place. That's how we talked about every scene on the days when we were shooting and she was just able to take it to a transcendent place.”
Chukwu’s other directorial credits include the feature film Clemency; the and an episode of Sorry for Your Loss. She has been a DGA member since 2019.
You can listen to Chukwu's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.