Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor Changed Her Professional Name to Honor Her Late Mother: 'Love of My Life'

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s recent name change was a nod to her late mother.

The Oscar-nominated actress, 54, explained her decision to add “Taylor” to her professional name — nearly three decades after she started acting — in a recent interview with Variety.

“The love of my life, my mother, gave me my Daddy’s name. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, lady, I want your name,’” she told the outlet.

After a moment of reflection, The Color Purple actress decided to do something about it.

“This past birthday, I said, ‘What am I doing? I want to carry her with me every day,’” she told Variety. “So, how do I do that and not have to do that on a conscious level? It’s my name.”

So, she changed the professional moniker she used while racking up decades of acting credits — not to mention two Emmy nominations (Lovecraft Country, When They See Us) and an Oscar nomination for her 2022 performance in King Richard.

For The Color Purple, Ava DuVernay’s Origin and all other future projects, the actress will be credited as Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.

This is not the first time Ellis-Taylor has used her career to honor her late mom.

At the 94th Annual Academy Awards — where she was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance as Serena and Venus Williams’ mother, Oracene "Brandy" Williams — the actress’ gown included a special tribute to her mother.

Ellis-Taylor hit the red carpet at the 2022 awards ceremony in an orange Donatella Versace dress and on the left shoulder, the gown featured a special, embroidered message: the phrase "Jax Baby.”

Explaining the sweet nod to Laverne Cox on Live from E!: Oscars, Ellis-Taylor said her mom’s “name is Jacqueline and I'm Jax's baby," adding, "My nephew's name is Jax as well."

"Donatella Versace accommodated this wish for me and made it happen," she added.

Ahead of the 2022 Oscars — where Ariana DeBose took home a Best Supporting Actress award for West Side Story — Ellis-Taylor chatted with PEOPLE about her role in King Richard and what she learned from on-screen husband Will Smith.

She said that Smith, 55, who played the Williams sisters’ father, Richard Williams, showed an impressive “level of commitment” in the role, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor.

"It's very holistic with him, you know, who he is on camera with Richard Williams and how much he doted on those girls was how he doted on those girls when we weren't shooting," she recalled to PEOPLE. "They fell in love with him, 'cause it's easy to do. It was great."

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She continued, "What surprised me most about him was the first day that I went into rehearsal with him, he had Post-It notes of every scene broken down of the entire movie. ... I just thought, 'He doesn't have to do that.’" 

"It just shows his level of commitment even at this stage of his career,” she added. “I was so impressed by that."