“The Nickel Boys” is a fact-based drama of two incarcerated and abused Black teenage boys in 1960s segregated Florida, based on Colson Whitehead’s 2019 bestselling novel.

Under director and co-writer RaMell Ross “Nickel” has a distinctive style: Every scene is seen from a first-person point of view.

For Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, an Oscar nominee as the mother of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams in “King Richard,” that was unexpected.

Yet, Ellis-Taylor, 54, revealed in a Zoom interview, it ultimately forged a change in her approach.

“I always have felt the camera was not a partner in what I was trying to do in my work. Which is try to be as honest as I can and create and live in a space with another human being.

“I always feel the camera’s intrusive — and in the work that I had to do in ‘Nickel Boys’ I had to befriend the thing.

“The thing that I feel really is my enemy to doing my job I had to make my friend.

“Essentially I had to learn about connecting with another human being on camera.”

Ellis-Taylor’s Hattie has her life changed when her grandson Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse) is sentenced to the brutally sadistic Nickel Academy.

“RaMell and I talked about how would she be affected by this incredibly heartbreaking thing happening in her life. What would that do to her?

“She would be mentally affected by it. We would see her suffering. The first day, I made myself look disheveled with my clothing, my hair. We did a take — and RaMell and I both looked at each other and said, ‘No, that’s not it.’

“We realized for Hattie to be what she needs, it needs to be for Elwood. She can’t in any way betray that.

“Do you know what I’m saying? She has to be his strong tower. Even though she may feel like she’s falling apart, she can’t show that.

“Also, she’s a prideful woman. I think about my grandmother and how she didn’t have two dimes to rub together. But you never knew that!

“She was this wonderfully glamorous woman. She took care of me, and she never talked about how hard it was taking care of a child when she was in her late 60s.

“That’s what she did. She stood in line to get government cheese and peanut butter; she did the things she needed to do to take care of me. And she never let me see her sweat.

“And that is essentially what Hattie does. Hattie has to be Elwood’s evidence of there will be a tomorrow. She had to hold it together.

“And that’s what I tried to do.”

“Nickel Boys” opens Friday