Nia DaCosta is about to make her mark on Hollywood in a very big way. She’s already delivered big with her feature directorial debut, Little Woods starring Tessa Thompson and Lily James, but DaCosta was poised to have a breakout gig in 2020 with the release of her new Candyman movie.
Of course, the release of that film wound up being pushed a number of times due to the pandemic, but rather than have anticipation dissipate as the release date shuffle dragged on, it feels like it wound up hyping up Candyman's debut even more. Not are the film’s trailer and animated prologue excellent, but Universal’s dedication to getting Candyman a big screen release could suggest they’ve got very high hopes for the film’s reception. Then, to top it all off, we find out that one of the biggest film franchises out there, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, scooped up DaCosta to helm Captain Marvel 2, now titled The Marvels. So, if you needed more proof of DaCosta's sky high potential behind the lens, there it is.
Given all this Candyman, The Marvels and Nia DaCosta hype, it was an absolute must to discuss all three with WandaVision star Teyonah Parris when she joined us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night. During that part of our conversation, Parris mentioned she had seen and loved Little Woods, but when she first met DaCosta, she didn’t realize who she was. Here’s how their first encounter happened:
“I was doing a play in downtown theater, New York, and came out exhausted, completely exhausted, and a beautiful woman - it was Nia - and another guy was there, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. They come up to me, I’m tired, I’m exhausted and he’s like, ‘Oh, you know, we enjoyed your work.’ He’s like, ‘My friend, she is a director. She’s awesome. You should reach out to her.’ Now, we’ve all heard this before, right? [Laughs] Meanwhile, Nia’s standing off to the side like, ‘Hi!’ And so, I didn’t recognize her face or anything. I’m exhausted, I’m like, ‘Okay, thank you.’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m doing this little film. I would love to have you come in.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ Nathan’s like, ‘She’s being modest! Okay, it’s Candyman!’ I don’t know if he said Candyman, but he basically was bigging up his friend and I just started laughing. That was my first interaction with Nia and Nathan, and then in Candyman, Nathan and I end up playing brother and sister.”
Parris continued by highlighting some favorite qualities of DaCosta’s and her excitement about DaCosta making history by becoming the first Black woman to helm a Marvel movie:
“I just love her point of view. I love her sensibilities, her visual sensibilities. She’s so smart. I was excited to work with her then and then when I heard about The Marvels, I mean, it’s history. She’s making history. She’s amazing and I can’t wait for the world to see all of the awesomeness that is Nia DaCosta.”
While I’m sure DaCosta and the team had a solid budget to work with on Candyman, Marvel movies are in another league in that respect. With things likely getting bigger in every way imaginable, I opted to ask Parris for something about DaCosta’s approach to directing her actors that stayed consistent from Candyman to The Marvels. Here’s what she said:
“As far as her actors, I feel like she took, and has taken, even as we started building towards The Marvels, great care to hear our feedback on who this character is, what story we’re trying to tell and finding ways to - I mean, most of the time when I say, ‘Hey, I’m thinking this,’ she’s already thought it and is thinking it and has been working on ways - she was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna get to that. There’s this, this and this that I’m thinking about for that moment.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, well, okay!’ So I love that she’s always thinking ahead and that I always feel very welcome to go and talk with her and to hash out story points and character arcs and development.”
If you’re looking for more from Parris, hang tight because we’ll have her full episode of Collider Ladies Night coming your way soon and it includes loads more about her time working on The Good Wife, playing Monica Rambeau in WandaVision, working with Spike Lee on Chi-Raq and so much more!