Jeffrey Wright, From 'Basquiat' To 'American Fiction'

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

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Summary

Wright is up for an Oscar for best actor this year for the film American Fiction, where he plays a novelist who's frustrated with the publishing industry's expectations of Black authors. He cynically writes a book under a pseudonym that's full of clichés, like drug abuse, violence, and poverty — and it's a hit. Wright's first starring role was in the 1996 film Basquiat. He talks with us about his big break in the play Angels in America, and the time early in his career when he was acting opposite Sidney Poitier and asked for advice on acting.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from SAP Concur, a leading brand for integrated travel expense and invoice management solutions.
0:08.5	With SAP Concur solutions, you'll be ready to take on whatever the market throws at you next. Learn more at concur.com.
0:17.0	This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and our guest today is award-winning actor Jeffrey Wright.
0:22.0	From blockbuster movies to independent films and television. is award-winning actor Jeffrey Wright.
0:22.8	From blockbuster movies to independent films and television, Wright is often referred to as
0:27.7	an actor's actor.
0:29.5	He's portrayed important historical American figures, including artist Jean-Michel Basquiat,
0:34.8	Muddy Waters, Colin Powell, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
0:38.6	Wright has also appeared in three Bond films, The Hunger Games series,
0:42.3	Batman, and West Anderson's The French Dispatch and asteroid
0:45.9	City.
0:46.9	He was a series regular in the HBO show's Boardwalk Empire and West World.
0:52.5	This year, Wright is up for an Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Thelonious Monk Ellison,
0:58.1	an American fiction.
0:59.8	It's about a frustrated novelist and professor fed up with the literary world profiting from
1:04.4	stereotypical stories about black people. To prove his point, Monk uses a pen name and
1:09.8	writes a book that leans into all of the stereotypes, and he's offered a huge advance, making
1:15.4	him the very kind of author he's tried to avoid becoming.
1:19.4	The film is adapted and directed by Court Jefferson, and is based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett.
1:26.1	Jeffrey Wright is a Tony Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning actor.
1:30.2	In addition to American fiction, he also stars as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the recent film Rustin.
1:36.0	Jeffrey Wright, welcome to Fresh Air.
	...

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