"Those violent moments hit me hard after a few watches'

Brandon Wilson, the star of Oscar-nominated Nickel Boys’, speaks to Lydia Spencer-Elliott about America’s past, the film’s tougher scenes and an unlikely UK sitcom connection

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How would you react if a film you starred in was unexpectedly nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars? By popping a bottle of champagne, jumping up and down, or bragging on social media, maybe. But Brandon Wilson, who leads RaMell Ross's adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Nickel Boys alongside Ethan Herisse, did none of these things when the drama got the nod alongside titles including Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, The Substance and Wicked last month. “I was excited,” the 31-year-old actor promises ahead of the awards show this Sunday. “[But] it’s funny. It’s like that expression, ‘Once you’ve seen how the sausage is made’. I don’t care about the sausage anymore.”

While awards may be frivolous, Nickel Boys is nevertheless remarkable. Wilson plays Turner, a teenager with an abundance of effortless charm despite living in the hellish reform school Nickel Academy. It’s here – where children are routinely beaten and abused – that he befriends his bookish classmate Elwood (Herisse) who’s unfairly incarcerated after unknowingly hitching a ride in a stolen Chevy convertible. Turner, a long-term resident, shows Elwood how to make their cruel reality marginally more bearable with afternoons spent listening to music or swimming in the pool at a local woman’s house where they’ve been sent to paint her porch. While Elwood quietly collects evidence against the racist institution to take the organisation down and set himself free, Turner is more resigned to his fate. “He works within his box,” Wilson says. “He believes in the reality of his cage. But he’s smart enough to furnish it to his likings.”