Brad Pitt Talks to Director RaMell Ross About How His Basketball Career Unexpectedly Influenced ‘Nickel Boys’

Read an excerpt of the pair’s conversation below and watch the full video, an IndieWire exclusive, right here.

Brad Pitt: Thanks so much, man, for taking time out to talk about “Nickel Boys.

RaMell Ross: Pleasure is mine, man. Pleasure is mine.

I haven’t seen anything like it. It’s so original. And I have some questions.

I’d love to field them. I’d love to field them.

Well, first starting with “The Nickel Boys,” it’s based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name. Tell me about the pressure, the responsibility, the joy of interpreting this, what you co-wrote with Joslyn Barnes.

Yeah, it’s a lot of pressure, but I think the real pressure, honestly, was not messing it up to the point where this opportunity wouldn’t be afforded to others. I think it’s pretty unprecedented that companies like yours, and this isn’t a promo for Plan B, but you guys support some pretty wild ideas, like how do you make a film that is so reflexive, but also in conversation with Black visuality and also supporting Colson’s narrative and elevating the Dozier School boys to the annals of film? These are big ideas. So the pressure was, I think, to satisfy the concept, to give life.

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