Brian Tyree Henry reflects on Oscar-nominated role in 'Causeway'

Brian Tyree Henry is opening up on the impact his Oscar-nominated role in "Causeway" had on his mental health and his career.

Appearing as the first March "Of the Essence" cover star, Henry, who earned an Oscar nomination back in January for best supporting actor for "Causeway," said the role helped him in his own journey with grief.

In the A24 film, Jennifer Lawrence plays a soldier who suffers a traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan and returns home to New Orleans where she strikes up a friendship with Henry's character James Aucoin, who is navigating loss after tragedy.

Henry said that playing Aucoin in the film "came at a time in my life where I needed to find a reflective surface in order to figure out a lot of parts of the pain and grief I was going through in my own personal life."

"There was something about him that really tapped into me dealing with the grief I was carrying in my life and the non-confrontational way that I chose to approach it by actually just wallowing in it," he continued.

The role helped him process the grief he was holding onto after losing his mother in 2016, Henry said.

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"He allowed me an opportunity to truly vent, and to truly lay some of those burdens down in a way that I hadn't really been able to with other characters from my past," he explained.

While he said that acting has had a positive effect on his healing process, Brian said he never wants to confuse it for therapy.

"This is therapeutic, but therapy is therapy," he said of portraying different characters. "And I want to encourage as many people as possible, especially Black people, to go to therapy."

"There is nothing weak about feeling. There's nothing weak about being a Black man who asks for help, or who actually doesn't know the answer to how to get on the other side," he added.