Why Ava DuVernay chose not to get married or have kids: ‘My work is my heartbeat’

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay has gotten candid about why she never got married or had kids and how she’s quite involved in her busy career.

Speaking to InStyle on 3February, the Selma director, 49, noted that she’s gotten the opportunity to focus more on her work since when she made the decision not to have children or get married.

“There’s that line people say, ‘No new friends.’ she said. “But there can be. I can’t mature in my work if I don’t open my life a bit more. I didn’t have kids by choice, and I’m not married by choice. I was able to embrace my career later in life, in my 30s.”

“So I’m going to do what feels good to me, and I’m going to have fun,” she added.

DuVernay acknowledged that she’s not only focused on “the things that are important to [her]” but she’s learned how to “prioritize”.

And although she used to be very wrapped up in her work in her past, she hasn’t considered this a bad thing.

“I’m someone who was a real workaholic and I always resented being called a workaholic because that makes it sound like an addiction of some kind,” she said.

“My work is my heartbeat, and I enjoy doing it, so I always resented it being called something negative,” she explained.

The When They See Us director also noted that when she places a “sense of labor” on top of something she really loves, that being her work, it’s important to “divide the love of it and the labor of it.”

“I was able to focus so that I’m doing less of what I don’t like and more of what I do like,” DuVernay said. “That’s a fortunate and privileged position, but I’m in it. I’m treating myself better, from a health perspective.”

This isn’t the first time DuVernay has discussed how passionate she is about her career. Speaking to The Cut this past October, she described what a typical workday is like for her at her company, ARRAY, and what she enjoys most about it.

“My favorite part of my job is editing,” she said. “We have six shows, and almost every day I’m editing one of them. I liken it to playing Barbies. I loved playing Barbies when I was little. My doll is the footage, and I can make whatever stories I want out of the footage, and that happens in the edit.”

Aside from responsibilities on the job, DuVernay also revealed how far she wants her career to go.

“I think the most elusive thing when it comes to a filmmaker like me — a Black woman filmmaker — my biggest goal is to achieve longevity,” she noted. “That’s what I want to achieve. I want to be calling ‘action’ and ‘cut’ at an older age. I want to be a senior citizen making films my way, with my vision, telling my stories.”