Teyana Taylor is generating early Oscar buzz for her performance in One Battle After Another.
One of the film’s most striking moments shows Taylor’s character, Perfidia Beverly Hills, fully pregnant and wielding a semiautomatic weapon — an image that’s as powerful as it is provocative. Still, some viewers have criticized the scene for what they perceived as the sexual objectification of Perfidia by Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn’s characters.
When asked about that reaction during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Taylor didn’t shy away from the conversation.
“Is that not what Black women go through?” she said. “We are fetishized, especially by creepy motherfuckers. And we are, unfortunately, the least protected people. Showing what Black women go through, that’s a hard reality to accept. And this movie should spark debate, I always knew it would, because sometimes you just got to shake the table.”
Taylor’s star continues to rise with a packed slate ahead. In addition to One Battle After Another, the 34-year-old is starring in the Hulu show, All’s Fair, alongside Kim Kardashian, and is gearing up for her own feature directorial debut with Paramount’s Get Lite. Dionne Warwick handpicked Taylor herself for a biopic on the singer and actress, and a Kevin Hart comedy has been greenlit.
But first, Taylor will appear in The Rip, a Netflix crime thriller that reunites Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as both actors and producers. The film, which also stars Steven Yeun and Catalina Sandino Moreno, is slated to premiere on Jan. 16.