It’s an undisputed fact that director Ava DuVernay is one of the hardest working women in Hollywood.
The Oscar-nominated filmmaker’s enviable resumé includes back-to-back projects with what seems like very little down time in between. DuVernay never stops and it’s partially because she feels like there’s not enough time.
“I feel, if I’m honest, that there’s a short window for me in the business. There’s no Black woman who’s had a 20-to-30-year consistent career in which she’s been free to make what she wants to make and has people wanting to finance that,” DuVernay said in the March issue of ESSENCE.
But that intensity and drive comes from another influence as well. Growing up, DuVernay watched her mother strive for better positions, moving up the ladder from bank teller to head of an HR department.
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“I remember all the steps. It was just something about the rigor of her going to school at night and raising three girls as a single mom,” she says.
“That was a big influence on me.”
You can read Ava DuVernay’s full interview in the March 2017 Issue of ESSENCE Magazine, on newsstands now.