Ava DuVernay is getting candid about her life.
The "Selma" director talked about her decision to not get married or have kids in a Thursday interview with InStyle and she says that by not starting a family, she was able to focus more on her career.
"There’s that line people say, “No new friends.” But there can be," she said. "I can’t mature in my work if I don’t open my life a bit more. I didn’t have kids by choice, and I’m not married by choice. I was able to embrace my career later in life, in my 30s. So I’m going to do what feels good to me, and I’m going to have fun."
DuVernay noted that she "was a real workaholic" in her past. However, she never saw it as a bad thing.
"I always resented being called a workaholic because that makes it sound like an addiction of some kind," the "Queen Sugar" creator explained. "My work is my heartbeat, and I enjoy doing it, so I always resented it being called something negative."
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She added, "When you put a sense of labor on top of something you really love, you need to be able to divide the love of it and the labor of it."
"I was able to focus so that I’m doing less of what I don’t like and more of what I do like. That’s a fortunate and privileged position, but I’m in it. I’m treating myself better, from a health perspective," DuVernay continued.
As a Grammy-nominated director, DuVernay has created so many great movies and TV shows like 2019's "When They See Us." But out of all the amazing projects that she's worked on, she said there was one particular scene in "A Wrinkle in Time" that made her "heart explode." And that was when Storm Reid's character, Meg, flew for the first time.
"She breaks through all the secrets of the universe and becomes one with herself and everything around her," DuVernay said.
The "Naomi" executive producer also talked about how much her mother and her community in Lynwood, California, shaped her image of beauty. She said that after becoming more conscious about her history and culture, she stopped straightening her hair with chemicals and decided to embrace her curly locs.
"I had to decolonize myself," she said.
"My pride was being a Black girl with long hair. Long, natural hair was seen as a thing," DuVernay added. "When I cut it, I felt more myself than I ever had, partly because I let go of that expectation."
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