Teyana Taylor on Oscars nod: Big dreams, Golden Globes win and SNL

Teyana Taylor, seen at the Bafta Film Awards in London this week, says some of her biggest dreams are becoming a reality after being nominated for an Oscar. Photo / Dominic Lipinski / Getty Images.

Teyana Taylor has always been a “big dreamer” but never imagined she’d be nominated for an Oscar.

The 35-year-old star is amazed by how far she has come in her career and feels emotional at the thought she will inspire young girls watching her at the Academy Awards next month, where she is in the running for the Best Supporting Actress prize for One Battle After Another, having won the same accolade at the Golden Globes already this year.

Speaking on Entertainment Weekly’s Awardist podcast, she said: “You never know which one of them dreams is going to become a reality. So I’ve always been a big dreamer.

“I dream about everything, all the possibilities, even just bucket list stuff. Just growing up watching SNL [Saturday Night Live], who would’ve ever thought that I would’ve been hosting SNL in the same year that I’m nominated for an Oscar. I used to be that little girl watching the Oscars.

“To now be in that space where I’m probably the one that another little girl sitting at home is watching me or saying that she loves my dress, or saying that she loves my speech, like, oh my God, I’m getting chills talking about that.

“It’s a lot in the best way, you know? I’m so overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.”

Taylor plays Perfidia Beverly Hills, a revolutionary group leader, in One Battle After Another, and while she doesn’t seem to have much in common with her character, she identified with the way she is treated by other people.

She said: “What black women go through, that was easy to understand in Perfidia. It was easy to understand what it felt like to be ignored. It was easy to feel like what it felt like to be in survival mode. It was easy to understand what it felt like to not be feel seen or heard.

“I had just got out of [the film A Thousand and One], where I was somewhat of a complex woman that was trying to navigate motherhood. So I felt like with playing Perfidia, I was able to take the complexity up a few more notches.”

In the movie, Perfidia flees the US for Mexico, but sends a letter to her daughter, which she reads at the end of the movie.

And Taylor recalled how she and director Paul Thomas Anderson workshopped the note together and it made for an emotional moment during filming, particularly because of the illness of producer and first assistant director Adam Somner, who died of cancer in November 2024.

“It’s so crazy because that note that you hear, we did that in one take. And I just remember how emotional we were — me, Paul, and our sound guy,” Taylor said.

“We are all crying. And at that time, we were losing Adam.

“It was very, very heavy for all of us. And the perseverance, everything that we were going through, it was the last day of filming, and that letter just hit hard. Are you happy? Do you have love? I’m getting chills just thinking about it.”