Andre Holland on art and forgivenss in Exhibiting Forgiveness

André Holland shared his experience in making the touching film Exhibiting Forgiveness. The film tells a story of a man who has a distant relationship with his father following a childhood of trauma and what it takes to try to heal and overcome this. Andra Day stars alongside Holland playing his wife Aisha and the two of them found an incredibly natural bond in building their characters marriage onscreen.

In the film, Andre plays Tarrell who is also an artist and a painter, and so he fully immersed himself in painting and understanding the medium in preparation for the role. The films director, Titus Kaphar is also a celebrated painter and personally bought Andre into his paint studio where the two worked side by side together. He noted how this time with Titus also gave him a real window into his world through this. Titus wrote and directed the film from an incredibly personal space based on his own life, and yet didn't want to create it as a direct autobiographical piece which also gave Andre a lot of creative freedom in the role. He was thrilled at the prospect of working with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in the role of Tarrell's mother in the film and found a real emotional core to their scenes together.

With the theme of the film being forgiveness, he found it to be an interesting experience to determine how he could have his character confront the pain in his past to try to find a way to move forward both for himself and his family.

Watch the full conversation below:

Q&A on the film Exhibiting Forgiveness with actor André Holland. Moderated by Mara Webster, In Creative Company.

A Black artist on the path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, a recovering addict desperate to reconcile.