Ethan Herisse Talks About Starring in ‘The Nickel Boys’ Adaptation

When Ethan Herisse was in college, his friends kept joking that he was the real Hannah Montana. He spent middle and high school in Burbank auditioning between classes, landing his first guest roles on shows like The Mindy Project and then get the performance of a lifetime as teenager Yusef Salaam When they see us. When Herisse graduated from UC Irvine, he kept that part of his life under wraps for as long as possible. “I don’t say ‘I’m an actor,'” he says with a laugh. “But it was funny because I would meet people, and it would be completely normal, and then it would be time to share Instagrams and they would look for me and ask – ‘What?’ ”

Herisse graduated in chemistry in June, and is celebrating his first major role this December. The actor, now 24, is leading the adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Nickel Boys — a meditation on racism, trauma and memory, using the story of two teenagers who bond while in a violent reform school in the Jim Crow South. Brandon Wilson (way back) he had already been cast as Turner, a relative veteran of the fictional but historically inspired Nickel Academy, when Herisse came to read for the role of the relatively more wide-eyed Elwood. The two immediately bonded, and when they arrived on set in New Orleans, the production delay due to COVID gave them more time to get to know each other. They spent a week watching movies like Stock and Bones and All and sharing music with James Blake and Omar Apollo, building a bond that helped them weather the project’s unsettling material.

“I had no problem getting into this really vulnerable space because I wasn’t just with a co-worker, but with a friend,” says Herisse. “And then at the end of the day, we could rely on each other to get back into our bodies. It helped me get back to being Ethan.”

Nickel Boys Isn’t it Herisse’s first time bringing a difficult story to the screen – he says it’s during filming When they see ushe often felt the weight of telling the story of the Freed Five in a way that seemed instinctive—but Nickel Boys Director RaMell Ross’s filmmaking style brought unexpected challenges. Ross, an Oscar-nominated documentarian, shot the film almost entirely in POV format, so the audience only sees what each main character sees. It required the actors to look directly into the lens (a failing in any other filming) while in front of the camera; an unfilmed actor would follow the DP at close range in an attempt to recreate what normal dialogue looks like. “It required unlearning everything I knew about acting and learning a new language,” says Herisse. “But I’m really grateful for it. It was really special to be able to give a lot to another actor even when you weren’t in the scene. And that made the film as authentic as possible.”

The result is a film that demands a lot from its audience. As the December 20 release date — and awards season — approaches, Nickel Boys‘ experimental style and the potential challenges presented by his visual language will become even more topics of conversation. (The New York Times‘ Alissa Wilkinson made it clear when choosing her top films of 2024: “I’m amazed this film exists.”) Herisse attended several screenings of the film, first during its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and then a month later at the film festival in New York, and says he was amazed not only by the size of the crowd but also by the way people allowed themselves to experience the project. “I had two hopes for this film to come out – that you could feel how much love we put into making it and that people liked it. That’s how it’s been so far, so I’ve already gotten everything I wanted out of this.”

Awards experts are also making the rounds. Ross recently won a Gotham Award for Best Director, and the film is nominated for Best Drama at the 2025 Golden Globes. But Herisse says his parents are his most important viewers. He still struggles with the sacrifices they made to support his creative endeavors — including moving his family from Massachusetts so he could go to auditions without completely disrupting his school routine — and ways to (spiritually) repay them. He took them with him to his first viewing Nickel Boyssitting in a private screening room with co-star Hamish Linklater and his daughter. “We were all pretty freaked out afterwards, and the first thing my mom said to me was, ‘You have to do a comedy next,'” he recalls with a laugh, adding that he takes her advice to heart and would love to one day be a part of a film like The lower partciting it as one of his favorite theater experiences. “And her next words were, ‘Are you crying?’ Because, well, I cried.”

This story appeared in the Dec. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.