Nelsan Ellis with Viola Davis
True Blood’s Nelsan Ellis was not only in the Academy Award nominated film, “The Help,” playing the part of Henry the waiter, but he also “helped” Viola Davis to get the part of Aibileen.
Davis was doing Fences on Broadway with Denzel Washington when she agreed to read for the role of Aibileen in New York. “She’s friends with Nelsan Ellis, who plays the waiter at the diner in the movie. He and writer, director, Tate Taylor had been friends for awhile, so Nelsan was instrumental in making an introduction,” Kerry Barden (Casting Director) says. “I was thrilled when she came in, because I actually thought no way is she gonna come in while she’s doing a Broadway play. Almost everybody who is in the film came in and read. It was fun to see people like Bryce Dallas Howard, who was pretty well known at that point, come in and take her best shot at reading. It took on a really beautiful life because everybody wanted to be involved in the telling of this story.”
Read more about this casting by going to: insidemovies.ew.com
