By Dan Brooks
She didn’t realize it until the New York Film Festival in late September 2024. Gabrielle Johnson was about to see Nickel Boys, in which she plays the girlfriend of main character Elwood Curtis, for the first time. Taking in the spectacle of the event, she came to understand that the movie was generating an unforeseen excitement and momentum.
“It opened up the entire festival,” she tells IPH. “Just being able to stand on that stage and seeing how many people came to see the movie … it was just like a dream come true.”
Johnson, 21, is a Charlotte native and a senior at New York University majoring in sociology and performance studies. She has long loved acting. “When I was little, I told my parents, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to be an actor,’ ” she says. Her parents enrolled Johnson in an agency at the age of 6, leading to modeling work, commercials and local theater roles. “It’s just something that I’ve been extremely passionate about, and it’s always been there throughout my life.”
Nickel Boys, an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, tells the story of Elwood Curtis and Turner, two Black teens sentenced to live in the abusive Nickel Academy reform school. Director RaMell Ross — Johnson’s cousin — had Johnson in mind for the part of Elwood’s girlfriend early on. “RaMell and I talked about it probably a year before filming even started,” she says. “I didn’t quite understand the magnitude of how big everything would be.” Johnson sees her part as representative of the life that Elwood lost.
“RaMell talked about this ‘epic banal,’ which I kind of put as the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of everyday life,” she says. “Finding the epic and powerfulness through those moments.”
The film is also notable for its innovative use of a first-person perspective, which required some rewiring for Johnson. “It reconstructed what I was taught as an actor, because the No. 1 rule is to never look at the camera,” Johnson says. “One of the challenges of that was maintaining a connection with the other actors.” Still, she sees it as an essential storytelling technique for this particular film. “It bridges this gap between the audiences and the characters in the movie.”
Nickel Boys, set to open Jan. 16 at IPH, has garnered staggering critical acclaim, including a Golden Globe nomination for best motion picture (drama). For Johnson, it’s a level of success that still seems like a dream.
“It feels unreal to see all this happening,” she says. “To see people’s reaction to the film, it’s just amazing.”
Five Questions With Gabrielle Johnson
What’s your earliest movie memory?
Probably High School Musical. Those early-2000s movies are what I grew up on —Disney, Nickelodeon. I just remember watching it in my house, and the series was something I enjoyed watching all the time.What’s your most prized movie-related possession?
A purse that I was able to keep from Nickel Boys. I’ve kept that with me in my closet, not to use but just to, like, hang up for the memories.Who’s your favorite movie character?
Probably Taylor Russell [as Emily] in Waves. That’s one of my most favorite movies and genres of movies, the coming-of-age movie. I feel like it beautifully conveys the growing pains of being a teenager.Popcorn or candy?
Popcorn, definitely.If you could see one movie again for the first time, what would it be?
Moonlight, by Barry Jenkins. It just has beautiful visuals overall and is a movie that I fell in love with and I wish I could see again for the first time. The way it conveys the Black experience, especially of a Black male, I feel like isn’t a movie you necessarily see all the time.