Do you ever have to stop and just stare at the ceiling for a bit? I do, with increasing frequency, actually. Most of lockdown was spent staring at various walls in my flat, wondering whether I should try to find God, since it certainly seemed as though the apocalypse may have been upon us. Thankfully, not all of my ceiling stares are prompted by an existential crisis. Sometimes they’re inspired by art, song lyrics that have burrowed into my mind or a film or TV show that was so moving I’ve had to take a moment to process what I’ve seen.
Over the past year or so, 30-year-old director Nia DaCosta has been responsible for quite a few of my ceiling stares. The first came after watching one of the two episodes she directed for series three of Top Boy, in which we see an immigrant family harassed by racists, until eventually their house is attacked by arsonists at night. They escape, but another character, Jason, gets trapped. You see him banging at the window, engulfed in flames, until there’s only flames left. It was absolutely harrowing.
You’ll be pleased to know DaCosta’s memory of the shoot is much sunnier than my own experience of watching it. The New Yorker loves working in London, you see, which is part of the reason she jokingly refers to 2018, when the episodes were filmed, as her “golden year” – that and the fact her first feature film, Little Woods, was released. (Yes, I stared at the ceiling after watching that too.)
I suspect, however, there’s another reason memories of 2018 are laced with a golden glow. Well, she thinks “It’s sort of a boring story,” but after she tells it to me, with obliging insouciance, I have to disagree. While DaCosta was working on Top Boy, her agent called her up with news that a sequel to the 1992 horror film Candyman was being produced by the mastermind behind Get Out, Jordan Peele. By the end of her shoot in the UK, she was flying out to LA to meet him in person and pitch her ideas for it.
With a titular villain whose origin story is that of a lynched black man, DaCosta notes the horror in Candyman doesn’t come from the ghoul with a hook for a hand, rather the racism that created him. Say Candyman’s name five times in a mirror and he’ll appear ready to slaughter; say a police brutality victim’s name at a protest in America and you might get arrested.
Cue another ceiling stare: just one month after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, DaCosta released a teaser trailer for Candyman in which the systematic oppression that leads to the villain’s creation is hauntingly illustrated by puppets. The timing made it more poignant, but the message it conveyed was always part of DaCosta’s plan. “For the entire time of making the film, I was safeguarding from going too fantastical, because I knew that this is about real life. If it’s not George Floyd, or Philando Castile, it’s someone else. I always knew the world for what the world was.”
The impact her own identity has had on her career, as a black woman in an industry dominated by white men, is not lost on DaCosta either. She knew success wasn’t impossible – growing up, directors such as Love & Basketball’s Gina Prince-Bythewood were evidence to the contrary – but she knew it would be hard. Today, she is one of the few black women behind the lens in Hollywood’s mainstream, joined by the likes of Ava DuVernay, Dee Rees and Melina Matsoukas.
“I was absolutely always aware of how my race and gender affected how people treat me,” she says, starting to choose her words more carefully. “Even on Candyman, there are some people I worked with who I could tell, if I wasn’t a young black woman, we wouldn’t be having these interactions.” It may sound vague, but I’m surprised by how specific DaCosta is, particularly about a film she’s currently promoting. “It really doesn’t matter what level you’re at, you’re always going to find those things.”
In August, it was announced that DaCosta will become Marvel’s “first black female director!” for the Captain Marvel sequel. The news filled me with joy initially, until I thought, “Wait, we’re celebrating a first... again?” In 2020, news stories such as these reveal how long the gate has been closed to existing talent. It’s an important milestone for DaCosta and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the latter deserves far less credit. She doesn’t sound as excited about the project as I’d expected when it’s brought up. “I found out [the news] on the internet,” she says. “There’s not much I can say about that right now.”
As our conversation draws to a close, I begin to get the feeling that DaCosta’s successes haven’t come as much of a surprise to her. While my eyes have been fixated on the ceiling, hers have been locked on the bag. As she says, “I was really clear about what I wanted and then I went for it.” Currently, I’m only clear on one thing: if 2018 was DaCosta’s golden year, then she’s now about to go platinum.
The rise of DaCosta
From child cinephile to helming a billion-dollar Hollywood blockbuster...
2000
Gets inspired by American Beauty and Full Metal Jacket, aged ten. PG films? Pfft!
2011
Graduates from NYU’s Tisch School Of The Arts, then goes to London for her master’s.
2015
Little Woods’ script is chosen for Sundance’s Screenwriters and Directors Labs.
2018
Little Woods is released, she works on Top Boy and is recruited for Candyman.
2020
Reads online she’ll be directing the sequel to Captain Marvel. Surprise!
John Boyega: 'I’m the only cast member whose experience of Star Wars was based on their race'
The self-lacing Nike Air Mags from Back To The Future are here
