An edited version of this article appears in the November 2012 issue of Essence magazine.
A Jersey girl graduates from high school, takes a few acting classes, kisses her reluctant boyfriend farewell, and, with her family’s blessing, drives solo from home to Hollywood – all on a hunch, a wish, really, that she can make it, that she can be a star. It is the occasional dream of every American teenager who ever flipped through a fanzine – and a fading illusion for about 98% of the waitresses in L.A. But for Emayatzy Corinealdi, the dream was in fact a vision.
In the spare and beautiful film Middle of Nowhere, Corinealdi manages to be almost beyond beautiful – exquisite and sublime, yet simultaneously ordinary. A regular girl that shines. Corinealdi plays Ruby, a nurse who defers medical school in order to make the weekly sojourn to visit her incarcerated husband. “Five years with good time,” she tells him, but mostly tells herself, as she copes with the sudden burden of aloneness on the outside. Ruby has a job but feels broke; her apartment is full of light but she makes it dark; she’s married but living single. Filmmaker Ava DuVernay boldly captures the vulnerability and power of a Black woman caught in the space in-between, but there is precious little dialogue to make this statement. As the camera lingers on quiet Ruby, emotions reverberate, her silent face communicates.
This role of a lifetime challenged Corinealdi, who laughs about getting through scene after scene where she worked with just a camera next to her. “It made me focus in on who Ruby was,” she explains. “This was a woman who wanted to take it all on herself. How does carrying all that make you walk?”
The actress has been walking red carpets ever since. Middle played in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance, where it garnered filmmaker Ava DuVernay the Best Director Prize, the first ever awarded to a Black woman. And this fall Corinealdi appears as Larenz Tate’s love interest in the BET original movie Gun Hill.
Corinealdi’s first name is a blend honoring both her father’s Panamanian heritage and her mother’s African American roots. Emma was her maternal grandmother, Yemate a Panamanian princess. For Emayatzy, the fairy tale ending was always hers to have. The trip to Tinseltown really was her ticket. For this sister, the dream-wish was real.
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