*Stage and screen actor Jeffrey Wright has already won a Tony Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
And this December he is delivering another award-winning performance in “American Fiction!“
Jeffrey Wright portrays Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in the Cord Jefferson satirical comedy-drama, based on the 2001 Percival Everett novel “Erasure.”
The film follows a frustrated Black novelist as he navigates siblings, sickness, and stereotypes. We talked to the D.C. native about his outstanding performance.
Q: This role feels like it was written for you…
JW: Cord sent me the script, and he sent a letter attached, saying, ‘When I started writing this, your voice was in my head…’ And he said, ‘I have no Plan B.’ That was flattering.
This character is probably closer to me than any other character I’ve ever played. I felt a very personal connection to Jean-Michel Basquiat’s story, he was a different guy, but I understood what it was like to be young and creative on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and running through the streets in the ’80s. I understood something about his challenges in terms of trying to be a free and honest artist…Monk wants to be intellectually a free man, creatively a free man, his own man, and find his own authentic voice without conforming to anyone’s expectations…But more intimately for me, is the story of his relationship to his mother…that is the heart and soul of it.
Q: Monk’s brother is constantly pointing out how he has some of his dad’s characteristics…What’s a trait or behavior you’ve realized you share in common with your parents?
JW: Yeah, my mom passed not too long before I got this script. And thankfully, I do find her in me. And it’s ironic because it’s the reason the film resonated for me…the story, the character, his predicament. Monk is asked to be the adult in the room of his family. When my mom passed, that was me. It was particularly challenging because my mother was such the center of our family and so capable and so driven and such a leader. It’s been gratifying to try to feel her shoes.
For more details follow #AmericanFiction | @americanfictionmovie | @OrionPictures
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