Anna Diop, star of Blumhouse’s critically-acclaimed horror flickNanny,resonates with her titular role in a way many actors will never experience throughout their careers.
Like her character Aisha, the actress herself is a Senegalese immigrant. But, while the undocumented Aisha—who finds work as a nanny for a wealthy Upper East Side couple—immigrated to the States in search of the ever-fleeting American Dream as an adult and mother, Diop made the cross-continental journey with her family when she was just a child.
Still, theTitansactress says she sees huge parallels between her and her mothers' lived experiences and Aisha’s story, tellingVarietyit’s something that she feels most acutely as her character begins to come into her own.
“The trepidation Aisha carries through the beginning of this, I really relate to because as an immigrant, I relate to tiptoeing around environments. I’m just getting to a place where I’m growing up from that and becoming a lot more unapologetic and taking up space myself,” Diop shared. “…I am just myself evolving into the place that we see Aisha evolving into.”
While a good deal of the horrors that Aisha encounters inside the insidious affluent household are supernatural,Nannyrefuses to let its viewers look away from the true horror: humanity.
“…It’s also something as an immigrant I saw my mother navigate. Especially when you first get here and especially if you’re undocumented, you’re so careful and your parents, if they’re first generation, are raising you to be careful and cautious. That’s just an experience I relate to as an immigrant, as a Black woman.”
Related:Nanny Review: An Inventive Psychological Thriller Powered by Anna Diop’s Powerful Performance
Diop Says Immigrant Stories are Direly Under-Represented in Media
Unflinching, breathtaking, and the Grand Jury Prize pick at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival,Nannyhas only begun to make its true impact. Learning English through American movies and TV shows as a young immigrant, Diop says the most meaningful part of starring in thepsychological thrillerhas been the ability to give others the experience of seeing themselves represented on the screen.
“I hope that those of us who aren’t used to seeing ourselves centered find some sort of recognition in Aisha—either that she reminds them, or her story reminds them, of what their own mothers have experienced or what they themselves have experienced. We just simply need more of that.”
“We’ve been, I think, longing for it for so long and deprived of it for so long. It is refreshing when you get to see yourself reflected on screen…and for those who don’t necessarily relate, I hope it blows up a deeper empathy in them for these individuals and these people navigating vulnerable, precarious, dangerous…situations.”
