“She elevates everyone she works with to higher ground,” says Winfrey, “creating opportunities for others simply by saying, ‘It can be done.’ She hires the most inclusive crews and casts the industry has ever seen on every set she runs.”
Compliments from Oprah aside, DuVernay admits to moments of insecurity. After trying her hand at fantasy (and managing to turn a profit on a $100-million budget—no easy feat), the mixed reception to A Wrinkle in Time triggered a humbling period of reflection for the filmmaker. “I was having a really hard time,” she admits. “I had become so used to a certain reception and acclaim that even when little girls and people around the world were telling me what they loved about the film—I was a little wobbly.”
I’d related to that wobbly feeling two years earlier during our twisty drive around the Hollywood hills, and I understand deeply now when she tells me how she found her footing again: “I thought, Let me go back and stand on the things that I know I can do and that I feel I do really well,” she says. “And I really had to hope that those things I’ve always relied on would be able to carry me through and prop me up and move me forward. And they did.”
These days her definition of success is expanding: “I am trying to disrupt systems—systems that we in this country take as gospel. We’re born into them. We abide by their rules without interrogating what the rules are meant to do, who they’re meant to serve. And you can’t disrupt what you don’t understand. But once you understand, perhaps you engage with these things differently, no matter who you are. Perhaps you don’t assume that, because it’s a longstanding institution, it is right and fair, and you interrogate for yourself what you’ve been taught and told, and you learn to relearn for yourself.”
For now, and for the future, she’ll lead with her heart. For her, the definition of success is creating change.
Come back each day this week to read profiles of the 2019 Glamour Women of the Year honorees and get your tickets to the two-day event here.
Elaine Welteroth is a journalist, editor, and the New York Times—best-selling author of More Than Enough.
Hair: Nena Melendez; makeup: Adam Burrell at The Only Agency; set design: Evan Jourden; production: Viewfinders
