Exclusive: Taylour Paige and Riley Keough on creating their personas for ‘Zola’
Coming out this week is Janicza Bravo’s film, Zola, starring Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, Jason Mitchell, Ari'el Stachel and Colman Domingo.
The film had its world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
Zola is based on a Rolling Stones article titled, Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted by David Kushner. In 2015, Aziah ‘Zola’ Wells sent out a series of tweets that detailed a wild 2-day Flordia trip with a sex worker named Jessica, her boyfriend Jarrett, and Jessica’s violent pimp, who went by X.
Co-written by Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris, the film is set in 2015 where Zola (Taylour Paige), a Detroit waitress, strikes up a new friendship with a customer, Stefani (Riley Keough). Stefani seduces her to join a weekend of dancing and partying in Florida. What at first seems like a glamorous trip full of “hoeism” rapidly transforms into a 48-hour journey involving a nameless pimp, an idiot boyfriend, some Tampa gangsters and other unexpected adventures in this wild, see-it-to-believe-it tale.
For Paige, this represents another lead performance. Since her breakout role in Stella Meghie’s Jean of the Joness, the California native has been featured in White Boy Rick, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and most recently Boogie. Prior to beginning her film career, she was known for her role as Ahsha Hayes in the VH1 series Hit the Floor.
As the daughter to Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough, and the granddaughter of actress Priscilla Presley and singer Elvis Presley, Riley Keough has carved her own fame on her own as an actress with films such as The Runaways, Jack and Diane, Magic Mike, Mad Max: Fury Road, American Honey, It Comes At Night, and The Devil All The Time. On television, her performance in Showtime’s anthology series The Girlfriend Experience, executive-produced by Soderbergh and based on his 2009 film of the same name, garnered her a Golden Globe nom for Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.
Blackfilmandtv.com correspondent Sidnee Michelle caught up with the ladies, who coincidentally were born in Santa Monica, CA, as they talked about the personas they created in fleshing out the characters they played.