Impressing in a rare leading role as a disillusioned author, the actor talks his latest work and rich, decades-spanning career
Jeffrey Wright has, by and large, earned a Hollywood reputation for excellence portraying supporting characters. In American Fiction — Cord Jefferson’s subversive Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice Award audience winner from Amazon MGM Studios and Orion Pictures — he steps back into the limelight arguably for the first time since his breakout film role in 1996’s Basquiat.
Settling in for one of his first interviews since the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike, the genial and cerebral stage and screen veteran — whose roles include three outings as CIA operative Felix Leiter in the Daniel Craig 007 films and Lt. Jim Gordon in The Batman — seems a little nonplussed, rather like his latest screen character Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison.
However, the first thing Brooklyn-based Wright wants to talk about is London football giants Arsenal FC, a team he fell in love with when he spent time in the UK with his then-wife Carmen Ejogo (Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them), with whom he has two grown-up children. Wright had a season ticket back in the early 2000s and recalls watching club legends Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp. “From that moment on, I have been a Gooner,” he declares with a grin, referencing the nickname for the club’s fans.
In American Fiction, Wright plays the disillusioned English literature professor and author Monk, who is aghast when he witnesses the fuss at a Boston book festival over a debut novel catering to racial stereotypes of Black suffering. However, a short while later, Monk is at it himself. Exasperated over the elusive commercial appeal of his own fiction, Monk pens a pseudonymous novel in a similar vein and is horrified when his publisher suggests they build the persona of the author as a fugitive from justice. It becomes a publishing sensation and an ambitious white film producer comes calling.
Wright had not read Percival Everett’s book Erasure on which first-time director Jefferson based his film, and had to access “the book of my life” in preparing for the role.
“I really understood the circumstances for this guy on a more personal level than maybe any other film that I have ever done, except for possibly Basquiat,” he says. In the days since the interview the role has garnered nominations for a Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award, Spirit Award, and a Gotham.
“What I was drawn to — sure, the satirical elements, the social commentary is very nuanced and smart and on point — but I think the most subversive element is the family portrait. That’s the story. Because that is what we don’t see, what is unexpected, the antithesis of the type of tropes and stereotypes that we are too often fed. It’s a story of a family that is loving and maddening and imperfect as all families are, and they happen to be Black.”
Monk’s ailing mother is played by Leslie Uggams and the cast includes Sterling K Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz and Issa Rae. Shortly before Jefferson approached Wright for the role, the actor’s mother, a pioneering customs lawyer, died (his father died when he was young).
“My mom was the absolute epicentre of our family and then all eyes were on me,” he says, voice trembling. “I was raised by two women — my mother and my aunt, her older sister. All of a sudden, I became caretaker, not only to my kids, but to those who had been caretaker to me. I have never been asked to play those types of relationships [on screen]… I was drawn to that and to Monk’s journey as a flawed man trying to be better. That’s the movie for me. The gift is the family.”
Early years
Wright grew up in Washington DC and studied political science at Amherst College on a lacrosse scholarship. He moved to New York and studied acting at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. The breakthrough came in 1993 on Broadway, as nurse Belize in Angels In America, for which he won a Tony Award. He also acted in the 2003 miniseries adaptation, winning an Emmy and a Golden Globe.
Julian Schnabel’s biopic of the late New York street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat announced Wright’s arrival in film. The roles and plaudits followed as he notched up credits as underworld figure Valentin Narcisse in Boardwalk Empire and artificially created host Bernard Lowe in Westworld — both HBO series — as well as former victor Beetee in The Hunger Games franchise, and roles in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and The French Dispatch.
American Fiction’s message about racial stereotyping resonates deeply with Wright.
“Black culture is not monolithic; there are a range of stories, a range of heroes, and a range of villains just like with everyone else,” he says. “What the film is trying to speak to is this question of authenticity, of what the perception is of authentic Blackness, not only from the outside but also from the inside of the Black community.”
Wright — who has narrated Apple TV+ docuseries Lincoln’s Dilemma, portrayed civil-rights icon Martin Luther King Jr in HBO film Boycott and also plays congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr in current Netflix awards contender Rustin — concedes that the US’s long and complex history of race is fraught with challenges.
“We don’t have the language often to discuss it in productive ways,” he says. “It is always there and that’s what causes us to be so stagnant and odd at times with our cultural output.”
Naturally he wants to see more roles for and stories about people of colour, but also argues for a cultural acceptance where colour need not be the central talking point. He cites Jim Gordon, the Gotham police lieutenant in Matt Reeves’ 2022 smash The Batman.
“New York today is not what it was in 1939 [when Batman first appeared in a comic], when it was about 95% white,” he notes. “It’s now majority people of colour, so who in their right mind would build a Gotham for the 21st century populated entirely by white people, unless you’re a raging idiot? If you want to keep this beloved franchise alive, it has got to evolve and stay in the present.
“It’s also a bit odd that they are trying to mandate people into including diversity within all films,” he continues. “There are certain films that are not about a diverse group of people, that are about a single demographic — and that’s absolutely valid. The intent is good, but the execution of creating greater inclusion is not always so well calculated. That’s what we talk about in [American Fiction].”
American Fiction premiered in Toronto during the SAG-AFTRA strike, and Wright, like every actor attached to a studio film, inhabited a limbo realm. “The film was out there and I took it in from afar,” he says casually, although he turns serious when reflecting on the financial hardship felt by so many. He also spent time with his children, who have flown the nest, and “refocused on myself a bit”.
American Fiction begins its US rollout via Orion Pictures on December 15, while Curzon releases in the UK on February 2. “We are going to be pretty busy with this movie for a while,” says Wright, adding cryptically that in the spring he will shoot a new film with a prior collaborator.
And then there is London, specifically Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, currently flying high in the Premier League. “I’ve got to get back over and see some matches.”
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