Teyana Taylor Personifies A Concrete Rose In ‘A Thousand And One’
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Teyana Taylor delivers her most impactful on-screen performance to date with her leading role in A.V. Rockwell’s directorial debut, A Thousand And One. The K.T.S.E. singer stars as Inez, an unapologetic, defiant mother who kidnaps her six-year-old son Terry from the foster care system during the mid-‘90s in New York City. The two flee from Brooklyn to Harlem, determined to forge stability as oppressive systems threaten to dismantle the family and home they’ve built.
During an advanced screening held at an AMC Theater in Beverly Hills, Rockwell posed the question: “Who does stand up for Black women? Who fights for us?” As Inez’s story unfolds, it’s evident her excessive giving lacks reciprocity. She added, “For me, it was just trying to speak from this perspective of Black women really wanting to fully and wholly be loved and not just needed.”
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Taylor can attest to that perspective. As a married mother of two, the New York native used her own internal warfare and experience with postpartum depression to breathe life into Inez. Whether she was begging her on-screen husband, Lucky (Will Catlett) to “show up” for her in an effort to be softer, having a heart-wrenching confrontation with Terry about their complex past and respective futures, or sitting with her weighted emotions in isolation, the juxtaposition between herself and Inez is obvious, but only she can divulge how their parallels occasionally mirror one another.
VIBE caught up with Harlem’s very own to discuss whether she believes her character is a victim of circumstance or societal villain, and the overall cinematic love letter to her city and Black mothers everywhere.
VIBE: Let’s get right into it—love the film. You were amazing, but would you consider Inez to be a victim or a villain?
Teyana Taylor: Wow, thank you for the compliment. I don’t think Inez is a villain at all. I think Inez is really the superhero, honestly.
In what way?
Keeping it a bean—I think her strength makes her a villain to people who are trying to distract her. She’s a villain to the enemy, the villain to a person who is intimidated, or even the manipulator. She’s the villain to manipulators and people that are intimidated by her strength.
What would you say is her end goal?
Inez just wanted to give something that she never received. I think that she always wanted a family. She always wanted love, affection, and just reassurance. That’s what she gave. For everything that she had given to everybody else, I wanted Inez to give that to herself. Without spoiling the movie, I hope that she does. I hope that she realizes that and starts to actually give all of that love that she’s dishing out, actually taking it in, and just being almost a little bit selfish. You saw that she had given so much to everybody. It was really, really powerful to see her at the end understand, “Okay, I did my part. I did all that I could do, now it’s time to love myself and see where my journey takes me. I can leave knowing that I did what I needed to do. My son has a bright future ahead of him. He’s going to be something.” You see [she said], “I already won.” And now it’s time for her own little personal victories. That’s what I was most proud of, which I’m sure a lot of people [questioned at] the end of the movie.
Right!
Why was she smiling? I thought that that ending really said a lot. It was powerful because I think it [showed] she really never folded and she’s really a survivor. A lot of what Inez went through, the next person I feel like would’ve really folded. You know what I’m saying? And Inez is really a warrior. I think that she was willing to continue her faith walk. And that’s what I loved most. The fact that she could still find happiness even after everything that she had been through and still find it in herself to love herself and actually start putting herself first and opening the doors for all other things she wanted to do in life.
Yes, I love that. There’s a particular raw and emotional scene where she’s sitting alone by herself crying, watching TV, and eating. What ran through your mind while executing that and why do you feel it was important for her to just sit in her emotions in that way?
Ooh. We never really see Inez get super vulnerable. You know what I’m saying? [She] just got out of jail for scamming. So you never really knew [with] Inez when it was genuine [and] I think everything kind of finally hit her. And at that point, life had whooped her a**. That was her first real moment of weakness and defeat. That moment was just her crying and laughing through the pain. It was just such a raw moment because of course she’s blessed that she got herself this far. But at the same time, she’s just dealing with so much. And I feel like it was a real pure moment of just weakness. I feel like that was the moment that made her realize a lot about herself. You know what I’m saying? I think she was really beat down at that point.
As a mom yourself, what would you say was maybe one of the challenges that you had with embodying Inez?
I would call it more of a great challenge. Because for me, I was dealing with postpartum depression and I was also dealing with a lot of loss. I had attended a few funerals during a few different lunch breaks. And that was a lot for me. I think that I was able to pour in all of that hurt and all of that energy and emotion into Inez.
The beautiful part of it was that I was able to have a moment of weakness out loud. All the private and quiet battles that I fought, I was able to put it all into Inez and leave it all on the screen. The most challenging [part] was being able to turn Inez off and go home and be super mom. When you dealing with a newborn and a six-year-old, there’s no time to really feel or cry.
It was a beautiful balance in a way, even though it was an extremely emotional role for me. It was therapeutic in a lot of ways because I feel like I let out a lot of private battles [I’ve been] fighting, even all the way from just first coming in the industry. I was able to finally let it all out, everything that I had bottled up. I was able to finally unscrew my top and just explode.
That definitely came through in your portrayal of her. With you being from Harlem, do you feel that this film was a love letter to New York?
Absolutely. I feel like it was a love letter to New York and all the moms and hustlers—That’s what I felt like the beauty was of it. It wasn’t just another struggle story that ended however it ended. I really feel like it put on for all the single moms out there that’s really doing it. I mean even the moms that do have a little bit of support, [but] at the end of the day, you know how it is with kids, they will cling to the mom. The moms will always have the bigger job to do. It makes you appreciate the importance in the bar when a mom tells you, “You only get one mother.” Or when they tell you, “I brought you in this world, I’ll take you out of it.”
Like you know what, Mom? You right because y’all go through a lot. I get it. I also think it’s an eye-opener for a lot of the youngins too, because I was Terry’s age at one point. I was six-year-old Terry. I was 14-year-old Terry. I was 17-year-old Terry. Trying to figure out, understand why things were the way they were. Everything is why, why, why? Instead of really understanding the real-life struggle and sacrifices that your mom is making for you to make sure you got all these things you want. Whether it’s something as simple as a pair of Jordans, or making sure you got a bright future ahead of you, making sure you got a proper head on your shoulders.
Those are the things that we don’t understand until we’re on the outside looking in. Until we actually become a parent. So for me, becoming a parent was already a step, but playing Inez and happened to live out the struggles and sacrifices that my mom went through in real life, it definitely was a whole other level of appreciation than what I already had.
What do you want fans to take away from this film?
Well, honestly, I think that my [last] answer could take up for that, but also just appreciate more. Open up your eyes more, try and be a little bit more understanding and have a little bit more grace. Understand the struggle of just what we as women go through every single day and not using our voice against us, not using our strength against us, because it can’t only be okay when we’re fighting for you. It’s okay when we fight for you, but it’s a problem when we fight for ourselves. And I think it’s really, really unfair and it shows the importance of why we need to stick together.
A Thousand And One makes its theatrical debut on March 31.
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