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Watch as Will Smith presents the Black Women in Hollywood honoree, Aunjanue Ellis, with her award at the 15th Annual ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood event.
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00:00Oh, thank you, thank you.
00:04It is truly an honor to be here for my friend,
00:13Anjanew Ellis.
00:18You know, now I'm over 50 now, that once you're over 50,
00:22you don't get a whole lot of new friends, you know?
00:25So, you know, for me to have found a new friend
00:31at this age is really special.
00:36And, you know, I was trying to think what I wanted to say
00:40and I would, you know, I could talk about her work
00:44and I could, you know, talk about how, you know,
00:49she shows up on camera and I just, I wanted to share
00:54my experiences with my friend, Anjanew.
00:59I want you to know a little bit about her off camera.
01:09Anjanew Ellis will not hesitate to tell on your ass
01:17if she see you doing something you shouldn't be doing.
01:24We were on set and we're shooting, you know,
01:29and it's going well, you know, and, you know,
01:32I get excited and I'm talking, you know,
01:34and I see Anjanew out the corner of my eye
01:37going over to the director,
01:39talking about Will ain't wearing his mask.
01:43I'm like, what, you the COVID police now?
01:57Will not wearing his mask, you know?
02:01And the thing is, Anjanew, she has no poker face.
02:06She don't have no poker face at all.
02:09Whatever she's thinking and feeling will express itself
02:14in her body in some way.
02:17You gonna know what she thinks and what she feels.
02:20We were on set one time and we're talking and, you know,
02:25we hear this dude, you know, he worked for the production
02:28and, you know, he was wrong, he was talking crazy
02:31to some extra on set and he, coming out his mouth,
02:34he talking crazy and me and Anjanew,
02:36and, you know, Anjanew's displeasure started to,
02:41you know, express itself in her neck, you know?
02:47And we talking and I see her go...
02:54Right, and he talked, he was talking crazy
02:56and then she turned to me.
03:03Right, and she was like, you gonna do something?
03:06I was like, okay, Anjanew, I will talk to that man.
03:10I will handle that man,
03:11but I'm gonna need you to get your chakras realigned.
03:18I need you to get your root chakra and your heart chakra
03:21and your throat chakra back into vertical order.
03:26And then I will go talk to that man, you know?
03:30And, you know, so I went and talked to him,
03:33I straightened him out.
03:34And the one thing, if there is a central word
03:39that describes Anjanew Ellis, it's integrity.
03:43I'm gonna do it.
03:44I'm gonna do it.
03:45I'm gonna do it.
03:46I'm gonna do it.
03:47I'm gonna do it.
03:48I'm gonna do it.
03:49She don't care about money.
03:52She don't care about, you know,
03:54making our day on set.
03:57She cares about people.
03:59She cares about treating people right.
04:03She does not play injustice.
04:07She does not play unfairness.
04:10She does not play brutality, verbal or otherwise.
04:16And at the core of Anjanew is a fierce, noble integrity.
04:25And what is beautiful about being friends with Anjanew
04:30is she demands it of you in the most loving way.
04:37And in the few years that we've been together,
04:47you know, she's awakened a thing in me
04:51where she mirrors back to me the best version of myself.
04:56She mirrors back to me what I'm supposed to be.
05:00You know, damn it, I said I wasn't gonna be up here crying.
05:03You know, but it's been my honor to work with you,
05:13to protect you,
05:17to deliver love to the world with you.
05:27Anjanew is very quiet.
05:30Um, so she lets me do most of the talking,
05:33which works really well for our relationship.
05:38But she's always filling me,
05:43not only with words,
05:45but with what it feels like to have 10 toes down.
05:50And she keeps me focused on what we're supposed to be doing.
05:56You know, and it's been an honor.
06:00It's been a pleasure, um,
06:04to walk these last couple of years with you.
06:07The movie, we had to shut down and we came back six months later
06:11with COVID protocols and all that.
06:13And so we've been, we like a little bit like war buddies
06:16over this, over this past couple of years.
06:19So, um, uh, I'm happy, um, honored,
06:25and I am overwhelmed to be able to stand here with you,
06:31for you, beside you.
06:32Um, my good friend, Anjanew Ellis.
06:36Uh, now let's check out her awe-inspiring work.
06:40It's like Rosalind Cash and,
06:47and Diana Sands and Paula Kelly,
06:50and, uh, their spirits are in her.
06:52Anjanew Ellis, she embodies the truth
06:56of what black women experience.
06:57Any time you see her,
06:59whether it's on stage or TV or film,
07:04she validates a project.
07:07She grounds it.
07:09You feel like, oh, okay,
07:11this person's going to take me on a journey.
07:13I can tell she has something to say.
07:16When I first saw Anjanew on the screen,
07:18it was men of honor.
07:20I looked at this sweet, young, beautiful brown woman,
07:24and I was like, who is this?
07:26This woman is a star.
07:28She works from her heart, from her soul.
07:33You can see it, you can feel it,
07:35every time she comes across the screen.
07:37Anjanew Ellis is one of those actors that you know before you know,
07:41especially with somebody who, uh, you know, whose world,
07:45especially coming up, revolved around, you know,
07:48black cinema, black television.
07:50You know, Anjanew was everywhere,
07:51and she was always so amazing.
07:55I first met Anjanew Ellis when I was casting Ray.
07:59Kerry Washington played his wife.
08:01He had a succession of women, and we dealt with a couple.
08:04And Marianne Fisher was one of his first backup singers.
08:09Anjanew came in, she was very austere, very quiet,
08:13but there's an undeniable power about Anjanew Ellis.
08:16Once I met her, that was it.
08:18She had the role of Marianne.
08:20She has a presence.
08:22She doesn't say a lot, and that's even better,
08:25because actors communicate through their eyes.
08:27She's powerful.
08:28When we were making of Bill Street Could Talk,
08:31I knew the role of Mrs. Hunt.
08:33That was one of those roles where, you know,
08:34the character comes into the movie for about 20 minutes
08:38and just takes it over.
08:39Anjanew just having seen so much of her work, you know,
08:44where she is this very dense, powerful persona.
08:49She was just absolutely perfect.
08:50It's just something about King Richard
08:53that made us stop.
08:56It made us listen.
08:58It made us pay attention.
09:00You know, the film is called King Richard,
09:02but that's not the only person who contributed
09:04to the success of those girls.
09:07She did.
09:08The mother did.
09:09And Anjanew has a unique ability
09:10of really telling that tale, of speaking that truth,
09:14of bringing that person alive that we all know,
09:18that have all, in fact, impacted our own lives.
09:21I love King Richard, and I love her in it.
09:24Anjanew is bringing her A-game as she does with everything.
09:27What I love about the effect that her performance has
09:31over these white critics in Hollywood, white Hollywood,
09:34is that she's finally getting the love
09:37that she's had for so long from us, from them.
09:40This Oscar nomination for Anjanew in King Richard
09:45has been a long time coming.
09:47We are right on time.
09:49She's stepping into her full power.
09:51People see it.
09:52Congratulations, Anjanew,
09:53on your Essence Black Women in Hollywood Award.
09:56You inspire us every day, and I'm so happy for you, sis.
10:01I am so proud of you.
10:03I'm humbled that you call me friend,
10:05and you have been such an inspiration for the 30 years
10:08that we've known each other.
10:10Anjanew, I couldn't be prouder.
10:12I'm wishing you the best.
10:14I couldn't be more thrilled.
10:21Ladies and gentlemen, it's an honor to present
10:23the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Award
10:26to my dear friend, Anjanew Ellis.
11:09What's that sound?
11:12It sounds like some deltas are in the house.
11:15I don't know.
11:21Sorry.
11:23First of all, thank you, Will Smith.
11:25Come on now, y'all.
11:34First giving honor to God, who is the head of my life.
11:38Put a pin in that.
11:40Put a pin in that before you clap.
11:42Put a pin in that.
11:45Also to honor my grandmother and my mother in their absence.
11:50To honor my Get Fresh crew, my sister, my nephew, Mason and Bowie, Eric, and my million-dollar Stan Jones, Tina and Ian, and my Uber agent, Andrea Nelson-Miggs.
12:09This is going to be one of those annoying speeches where you have to, like, participate.
12:14So everybody in the room, close your eyes.
12:19Take a second to see, really see in the dark.
12:25Okay, you can open them.
12:26So much in the dark about darkness is derided.
12:32It's made horrific.
12:34We're trained to fear it.
12:35We're trained to think that it's ugly.
12:37It's used as the basis for colorism, for racism.
12:41But there is this thing that's called dark matter, and it makes up 80% of the entire universe.
12:52It's called dark matter because people can't see it, but people know that it exists because without it, the behavior of the stars, the planets, and the galaxies would make no sense.
13:04Much of my 27-year professional life has been in the dark, work that no one saw, work that no one wanted to see or should see.
13:15Or noble work that was not valued by white institutions, and yet I did it anyway in the dark.
13:28The work that I did in the dark fed and clothed and put roofs over the heads of people that I loved.
13:35My work sustained a movement to remove physical tools of segregation in my home state of Mississippi, and yet I did it in the dark.
13:43Why?
13:44Why do I do it?
13:45Because I work in a profession that when tasked to tell my history, black American history, I'm not talking about made-up stories.
13:55I'm talking about black American history.
13:58It looks to other cultures to do the telling.
14:00They hide behind words like universality, training, and pedigree, ignoring the pedigree of black Americans like Oscar Micheaux, Paul Robeson, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Lawrence Fishburne, Angela Bassett.
14:18That's my pedigree.
14:21What qualifies you to tell black American history is not trauma.
14:25It is not pain.
14:26It cannot be reduced to enslavement, colonization.
14:31Appropriation can be appropriation even when there are black faces, even within the diaspora, and it works both ways.
14:41To them, hope does not look like a black woman, but I know better.
14:45My hope comes from my mother and my sister and my grandmother, and I don't know anybody else.
14:51Working in the dark, tearing in the dark requires an incessant scream of, I'm here.
15:01Dark matter is unseen, but it's here, in the way that Celie screams at Mr. when he hurls black at her like it's a curse, and she says, I may be black, I may be ugly, but I'm here.
15:12And see, I'll change that, and I'll say, yes, I am black, there is nothing ugly about me, and I'm here.
15:23In the way that Miss Oracine says to her King Richard, when he tries to discount her brilliance to her face, I'm here, I've been here dreaming and believing just like you, you just didn't want to see me.
15:36In the way that Dorinda Clark Cole sings that in the midst of it all, in the midst of it all, and for her that meant depression and suicidal tendencies.
15:46I am still here, and it's by the grace of God, which brings me back to my opening words.
15:52First, giving honor to God, who is the head of my life.
15:56And so I need to say what God is to me.
15:58Andrea Nelson, can you come up here, please?
16:00I promise I'm almost done.
16:17The evidence, God to me, and its evidence is the survival of black people.
16:30The evidence of God is the culture that was created, not in Africa, not in America, but in the Atlantic Ocean.
16:39It's what writer Imani Wilson calls the deep, the song dance, the culture that I see and hear in Shante Adams and her portrayal of Roxanne Shante.
16:50It is what I see and hear in Nia Long in that forever eternal Love Jones.
16:57It is the brain of Quinta Brunson, the brain of that woman, and her stepping with Janelle James in Abbott Elementary.
17:10It is a propping up on every leaning side that I got from my mother and my grandmother, and that continues from this woman, Andrea Nelson Meigs.
17:19That's what God is to me.
17:23My God, she dark, dark.
17:27She black, black.
17:29She got microbeads.
17:32She got a twist out and a bonnet on at night.
17:37She smell like fashion fair and sand and sable.
17:41Her woman itself, her lips be shinin', her front teeth got a gap in between.
17:50She did what she did without the need, I'm going to make you mad, without the need for feminism.
17:59She had no need for it because it had no place for her.
18:02Women like Alice Walker who say that this is a second-hand language and I can name myself.
18:11They have no need, my God, has no need for a seat at the table because he built the house.
18:18She built the house.
18:21So what do we need for somebody's measly chair?
18:24My God, she woman, she dark, dark, she black, black.
18:31Thank you, Essence, for seeing the darkness in me and celebrating it rightly, as Toni Morrison would say, with delight and not derision.
18:42Thank you so much.
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