How a career pivot at age 32 led Ava DuVernay to become the first Black woman to direct a $100M film 

There’s no doubt that Ava DuVernay has shaken up the film industry. She was the first Black woman to win the directing award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012, to be nominated for Best Director for a Golden Globe, to have her film (“Selma”) nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and to direct a $100-million-grossing movie (“A Wrinkle in Time”).

However, DuVernay didn’t pick up a camera until 2005 when she was 32 years old. Until that point, she had been working in public relations.

DuVernay, who was honored on Forbes and Know Your Value’s fourth annual “50 Over 50” U.S. list, said one takeaway from her journey is that it’s never too late to make a change.

“You decide when it’s too late,” the 51-year-old told ForbesWomen editor, Maggie McGrath. “You decide when you don’t want to try anymore and when you’re gonna lean in a little bit… You are the director of your life… You decide how far you can go, no one else does.”

DuVernay recounted being a publicist in her 30s promoting films and television shows. She loved it, but while on set started to think about how she would tell the story. “I was wishing that I was directing. And one day I thought, ‘Well, why don’t I try’?” said DuVernay, who quit her job that day.

She noted, however that “one of the things that I tell people when they’re looking to make a change or pursue something new is, let it be, do it slowly… I was a weekend warrior. I was writing scripts on weekends… I was taking time, you know, before work, after work, to read, to take classes, and to slowly make my way towards the dream… The best part is the journey.”

She also spoke about one of her latest projects, “Origin,” which is streaming on Hulu. The film is based on the life of writer Isabel Wilkerson (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), who explores how the caste system can help us better understand what Black people experience in America.

DuVernay said it was important for her to produce and release the movie before the 2024 election.

“I won’t say that I’m looking at have, you know, an impact in terms of the outcome of the election, I just want people to be a lot more rigorous,” she said. “I want to see more rigor in our conversations around the things that matter.”

She continued: “I feel a general fatigue, I feel like people are exhausted. With the onslaught of news, with the onslaught of misinformation with kind of the tribalism, you’re on this side, I’m on this side… I think there’s a laziness, sometimes an apathy, folks really feeling very, very singular and kind of closed off in the way that they want to think… So the goal was for the film is to just kind of awaken get us to see one another in a different way. And hopefully that contributes to different conversations and more healthy outcomes.”