logo
episode-header-image
May 2022
35 m

Ava DuVernay is Triumphant

TED
About this episode

Before Ava DuVernay became the first Black woman director to win Sundance and get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, she was a publicist with a little hobby, a big dream, and a lot of patience. Adam talks to Ava about how she turned her side gig of filmmaking into a brilliant career, how her leadership style has evolved over the years, and what studying MLK while making the movie Selma can teach us about what it really takes to inspire.

For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/T4G29

For the full text transcript, visit ted.com/podcasts/rethinking-with-adam-grant-transcripts


ReThinking is produced by Cosmic Standard. Our Senior Producer is Jessica Glazer, our Engineer is Aja Simpson, our Technical Director is Jacob Winik, and our Executive Producer is Eliza Smith.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
Why are people acting like everything’s fine? with Rahaf Harfoush
<p>In our rapidly changing world, it might make you feel crazy to look around and see others going about life as usual. There’s actually a term for this phenomenon: hypernormalization. In this episode, Adam talks with Rahaf Harfoush, a digital anthropologist and expert on toxic p ... Show More
41m 21s
Nov 18
Talking people out of hate with Daryl Davis and former neo-Nazi Jeff Schoep
<p>The Ku Klux Klan is one of the tightest-knit White supremacist groups in America—once someone joins, they’re usually in for life. But since the 1980s, over 200 members have renounced their affiliation, and all give credit to the same man: a Black jazz musician named Daryl Davi ... Show More
41m 39s
Nov 11
Living each day like it’s your first with Suleika Jaouad
Suleika Jaouad is the author of the memoir Between Two Kingdoms and the new Book of Alchemy—she’s also a lifelong journaler. In this episode, Adam and Suleika reflect on how Suleika’s journaling practice has helped her through cancer, discuss the art and science of journaling, an ... Show More
42m 1s
Recommended Episodes
May 2022
Ava DuVernay is Triumphant
<p>Before Ava DuVernay became the first Black woman director to win Sundance and get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, she was a publicist with a little hobby, a big dream, and a lot of patience. Adam talks to Ava about how she turned her side gig of filmmaking into a bri ... Show More
35 m
Mar 2018
#118: Ava Duvernay: It's Never Too Late To Change Career
Ava Duvernay is an Oscar-nominated film director. Ava made her feature film debut with the documentary This in the Life (2008), a history on the hip hop movement in Los Angeles in the 1990's. This was followed by series of television music documentaries and her first narrative fe ... Show More
21m 9s
Jan 2024
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s New Hollywood Framework
Over the past 15 years, filmmaker Ava DuVernay (Selma, Queen Sugar) has become something of an institution in Hollywood. As a writer, director, and producer she’s worked to make our industry more just and diverse—creating opportunities for voices that have historically been under ... Show More
1h 8m
Nov 2020
Amy Adams
Six-time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams joins the show to discuss her latest film “Hillbilly Elegy,” based on the bestselling memoir by J.D. Vance, and directed by Academy Award winner Ron Howard. It’s the story of three generations of an Appalachian family struggling with volat ... Show More
53m 36s
Oct 2019
Demi Moore
For this special episode, Krista traveled to San Francisco to interview Demi Moore in front of a sold-out crowd at an event hosted by City Arts & Lectures. As an actress, Demi Moore carved out one of the most extraordinary paths in modern Hollywood, shattering expectations of wha ... Show More
58m 31s
Mar 2023
Women in Hollywood: Who runs the film industry?
<p>There is an impressive list of female creatives on this year's Oscar nominees list – actors, producers, costume designers - but no female directors. In fact, in the Academy’s 94-year-history, only seven women have ever been nominated. Why is that? And what is getting in the wa ... Show More
27m 40s
Feb 2020
The Legacy of an Oscar
February 11, 1940. Hattie McDaniel becomes the first-ever African American to be nominated for, and then win, an Oscar. Her legacy is complicated. And the Oscar itself has been missing, mysteriously, for almost fifty years. What did it take for McDaniel to win? And, 80 Oscar cere ... Show More
22m 37s
Sep 2023
ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021)
<p>By her early thirties, Ava DuVernay was already a successful entrepreneur, having founded her own film publicity agency in Los Angeles. But after years of watching other people make films, she started to get an itch to tell her own stories onscreen. Ava's first films were root ... Show More
1h 33m
Jun 2024
Ava DuVernay on Creating Films and the Power of Storytelling
<p>In this episode of Louis Vuitton [EXTENDED] – the Podcast, host Loïc Prigent shares a compelling conversation with Ava DuVernay, the film director, screenwriter activist, and Friend of the Maison. Following the Cruise 2025 Show in the iconic Park Güell in Barcelona, they excha ... Show More
24m 39s
Apr 2021
Viola Davis
<p>Oprah talks with Viola Davis, the most nominated Black actress in Oscar history, about her new film <em>Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. </em>In yet another superb performance, Davis inhabits “the Mother of the Blues” in an adaptation of the August Wilson play. Davis reveals what Ma' ... Show More
35m 5s