‘Till’ Star Danielle Deadwyler Reveals The Emotional Trauma Of Her Gut-Wrenching Portrayal: “I Am Completely And Utterly Wrecked”
deadline.comOn and off screen, Danielle Deadwyler implores us to not “look away”. Her eyes convey a quality that filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu recognized when she cast the Atlanta native to portray Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till, who was abducted, then lynched by white supremacists in Mississippi on August 28, 1955.
When her son’s tortured, misshaped body was shipped home to Chicago, Till-Mobley insisted on an open casket to ensure mourners witnessed first-hand the life-ending cruelty her sweet boy had suffered. “We can’t look away either,” Deadwyler says. “We have to look.” DEADLINE: With all that you’ve been through with this film, what kind of toll has it taken on you? DANIELLE DEADWYLER: It’s multi-fold, so there’s before, during, and after.
The before was the initial reading of Death of Innocence, Mamie’s memoir, and that was about gauging what the weight would feel like.
And then there’s the during. I felt really covered because I know people in every department. I know people from Atlanta who I’ve worked with for years.
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