A Wrinkle in Time: The Draw of Ava DuVernay

By Gill Pringle and Jessica Mansfield

Of all the up-and-coming directors in Hollywood, there’s one whose name we’re going to want to remember: Ava DuVernay. Her rise has been swift, most notably as a multi-award nominated director for such films as Selma and the ground-breaking documentary 13^th and as a producer on the television show Queen Sugar, whose dedication to hiring and working with women behind the camera was revolutionary.

She’s only going to get busier and busier, so it was about time that Disney snapped her up for her first big blockbuster studio film: A Wrinkle in Time.

Ah, yes, the film that made entertainment headlines as DuVernay became the first woman of colour to be given a budget of over $100 million, but is contemporary and diverse in so many more ways: following a young, biracial woman who goes looking for her scientist father after he disappears with the help of three transcendental, god-like beings, the film boasts an incredible cast and has an encouraging message for young women pursuing science-driven careers.

But it is its cast, in particular Oprah (as if you need a last name), Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling, as the ethereal Mrs Which, Mrs Whatsit and Mrs Who, that represent the power of Ava DuVernay as a filmmaker.

Sitting down to talk to FilmInk about the making of the film, Winfrey, Witherspoon and Kaling gushed about the opportunity to work with Ava DuVernay – and, as you can expect, Oprah’s journey to being part of the film was not so typical.

“I had been in New Zealand the year before, in Auckland, and didn’t get to the South Island. And I had wanted to do that. I so wanted to do that, everybody said, ‘if you didn’t get to the South Island, you didn’t really see New Zealand’,” Oprah explains. “Ava and I are talking on the phone, and when I heard that she was going to be filming in New Zealand, I said to her, ‘I’m going. I’m just going to go with you, hang out with you, for however long it takes, I’m going to block it out of my schedule, I’m going to be there and watch you shoot.’ You know, because I can.

“She said, ‘Well, if you’re serious about that, you’d actually come to New Zealand,’ and I was like, ‘For sure, I’m going to be there.’ She said, ‘Well, why not take a look at the script? I’ve been wanting to ask you to do this, but I didn’t want to pressure you, because of our friendship.’ I go, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ I didn’t know what it was. I was just like, ‘I’ll do it!’ And then I was like, ‘okay, let me read the book, see what this is’.”

Oprah refers, of course, to Madeleine L’Engle’s children’s classic A Wrinkle in Time; having been adapted once before into a 2003 TV movie, the book is beloved by many, and notoriously difficult to adapt for the silver screen.

“I never read the book. And I’m a reader, I’d just never gotten to it. It wasn’t until, actually, the very first day; I was called for the fitting for the costumes, with Paco Delgado, that I was like ‘Wow. It’s real. This is some kind of movie.’ The first day on, I was like, ‘What kind of movie is this that she had come up with out of the imagination?’ So it has been – the word delight, when you look up the word delight, there is my picture. Being in this film, the whole process, has just been one big delight.”

Reese Witherspoon was equally delighted. “Well, I had a version of Oprah’s story too, where my agent called me and said, ‘Ava DuVernay wants you to be in this movie.’ I said ‘Yes! Great! When do I show up?’ And they were like, ‘oh, no, you have to take a meeting.’ And when I was sitting across from her, I was like, ‘Really, you want me?’ It’s really flattering to be chosen to be part of Ava’s movies, because she doesn’t just make a movie, she makes an experience, for one; she cares about what happens in front of the camera, and she cares about what happens behind the camera. And everybody feels like they are important, special, honoured, valued for their contributions, and I feel like this was a masterclass in how to be a very thoughtful filmmaker, a real visionary. It was a privilege and an honour in so many ways, and I got to be this amazing celestial being, who hangs out with Oprah and Mindy Kaling all day. I mean it really was, truly, a delight, extraordinary. Just to get to stand next to these extraordinary women who I’ve admired for so long, and we get to talk about what we would impart to a young woman, today, right now, and discuss that with Ava, and discuss that with Storm [Reid, the film’s star]; it was extraordinary, really, a beautiful experience.”

“It’s absolutely incredible – I can’t believe that I was selected to do this, it’s such an honour,” Mindy Kaling adds. Having found enormous success in television, first on the US The Office and then creating her own sitcom The Mindy Project, Wrinkle is Kaling’s latest foray into blockbuster territory (after films like Inside Out and Wreck-It Ralph), but certainly not the last, with a starring role in ensemble heist film Ocean’s Eight due out in a few months.

“And to act with all these incredible actors, I mean, I’m a sitcom actress. And Ava saw something in me; we actually met at a party, for Malala, and Ava and Malala and I were the only three women of colour at this big party. Malala was sitting to my left, and Ava was sitting there too, and once I finished talking to Malala, I was like, ‘I really want to talk to Ava’. And after I finished talking to her, we had a great conversation, but I thought, ‘you know what, our genres are so different, we’ll never cross paths.’ And this happened. So, I feel so blessed to be part of it, the way that I spent every morning, four hours in the makeup trailer with these two, it’s great.”