American Fiction is one of the best films of 2023, with outstanding performances by the entire ensemble led by Emmy nominee Jeffrey Wright (Westworld). The drama marks Cord Jefferson’s debut as a feature film screenwriter and director, an auspicious start to, hopefully, a lengthy career.
Amazon Studios MGM hosted a press conference with Jefferson and his cast, including Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K. Brown, Erika Alexander, John Ortiz, and Adam Brody, as American Fiction continues to generate awards season buzz. The packed panel discussed Jefferson’s script and why it’s important to engage in this topic of conversation right now.
On Accepting the Lead Role of Thelonious “Monk” Ellison:
Jeffrey Wright: “Cord sent me a wonderful invitation to this project. He sent me the script and he sent, along with that, a letter saying that he had read […]the novel and written the script. And very early on heard my voice in his head as his character. I did apologize to him for that ‘cause I know how tricky that can be. He also said, ‘And I have no Plan B,’ so that was pretty flattering.
It happens occasionally, but I don’t often get scripts that are kind of designed with me and mind. And then when I read it, the membrane between my life and that character’s life was infinitesimally thin. It wasn’t really a matter of confidence; it was kind of more necessity.
I just said, ‘Yeah, I can tell this story. I know this man’s journey, particularly his relationship to the family.’ The necessity of becoming caretaker to she who was his caretaker. That was a very close experience, or one that I knew probably too intimately. […]But there were just a number of overlaps. The script was so finely tuned. The satire, the irony. I just, you know, I understood the music, and I hopped on board.”
On First-Time Feature Filmmaker Cord Jefferson’s Screenplay:
Tracee Ellis Ross: “The script was incredibly written. I was drawn in from the first moment. Cord, everybody says he’s a first-time director, but he’s not a first-time human. He’s just a substantial person that is incredibly intelligent […]and really clear and [has a] strong point of view but doesn’t have ego. Which is a very unique and special thing that lends itself beautifully to a director who gives his actors space but also knows what he wants.
But on the page, it was extraordinary. And the character itself, this role, I’ll just quickly say, the fact that she was a Planned Parenthood doctor was very interesting to me. The fact that she was holding this space in the family, and filling in the gaps that so many Black women do in the world, and to give life to that woman was really important to me.”
Sterling K. Brown: “What gave me confidence in it is the script, like everyone else has said, and the desire to put that story out into the world. The desire to expand how the media can see us, because sometimes it has been more narrowly defined. To see the banality and normalcy of people dealing with day-to-day troubles who happen to look like us.
And the idea that it was written so well – because I think I never underestimate the power of a story well-told – and the fact that it gets to be populated with people with melanin makes me really excited. And then, hopefully, it’ll make money, and then we get a chance to make more of them.”
Erika Alexander: “We need to have these conversations. I was really, really honored to be invited to it by Cord Jefferson who laid out what he wanted to do, why he saw me in the role. It’s really nice to go where you’re invited, where you don’t have to prove what you’ve done. You don’t have to convince anybody. That they’re already seeing you in a place, standing next to people not only that you admire, that you aspire to, that you really are rooting for in life, and hopefully, they’ve been rooting for you. That’s been my whole experience. So, I’m really grateful for this.
I think that America…I love that it’s called American Fiction because we’re all living in a fiction of some sort, and we need to start telling more truths.”
On Adapting Percival Everett’s Erasure as His First Feature Film:
Cord Jefferson: “Before I worked in film and television, I was a journalist for about a decade. […]Out of college, I started working as a freelance journalist. I sort of worked in all capacities as a journalist. But toward the end of my career, I was working at Gawker. I was there from 2012 to 2014 and toward the end of my career, I published this article in 2014, at the end of my journalism career, called the ‘Racism Beat.’
It was about how I had reached this place in my career when, you know, like, weekly somebody would come to me and they would say, ‘Do you want to write about Trayvon Martin being killed? Do you want to write about Breonna Taylor being killed? Do you want to write about Mike Brown being killed? Do you want to write about this racist thing that somebody said about President Obama?’
It just felt like this revolving door of misery, constantly. Like, that’s what my job had become, was to sort of dissect the latest violent tragedy in the Black community. And it felt like, A, that is sort of uninspiring for me on a creative level. But then B, it was also like, what can I write about this that hasn’t been written about this hundreds of times before? Right? What can I write about this situation that wasn’t written by Frederick Douglass and people, like, literally centuries ago? Right? And sort of like as if I needed to write something new about it.
You know, it’s difficult to try to come up with something for every new tragedy. And so, I was excited because when I got into film and television, it felt like, ‘Great, I’m no longer beholden to the realities of the world.’ Sort of, we can write Black people in space. We can write about Black people riding unicorns. We can do anything that we want to. It’s sort of like anything that we can dream up, we can write. And lo and behold, it wasn’t long before people came to me and they were like, ‘Do you want to write a movie about this Black teenager being killed by police?’
It was like, ‘Do you want to write a movie about slaves? Do you want to write a movie about gang members? Do you want to write a movie about drug dealers?’ It just felt like even in the world of fiction, there is such a severe limitation to what people think Black life looks like. Even in the world of fantasy, where we can do anything, there’s still such a limited perspective of Black life.
It’s painful on a sort of creative level. And it’s sort of obviously frustrating as somebody who wants to make work. But also, it’s painful because the implication there is that Black life does not have the breadth or depth of everybody else’s life.
It’s sort of like we are defined by these five or six stories that we tell over and over again, largely that are about our ability to withstand pain and violence and suffering. And to me, it’s like, yes, I’ve had bad interactions with police officers. That has happened in my life. But it doesn’t happen often, and when it does happen, it’s the least interesting thing that’s happened to me that day. Right? ‘Cause it says nothing about who I am as a human being [and] it says everything about the person who’s harassing me. It is nothing about my humanity or my identity.
And so, these are the things that were swirling around in my mind when I picked up the novel Erasure. It was dealing with these themes. And besides just those professional themes of what it means and the restrictions that people put on Black writers, you know, I have two older brothers. I really understand the sibling dynamic that was being represented in the book. You know, we have a very overbearing father figure who I love but who looms large.
So, that sort of made sense. My mother didn’t die of Alzheimer’s, but my mother died of cancer about eight years ago. When she was first sick, like Lisa in the film, my oldest brother was living in our hometown and he was the one who took the responsibility of taking care of her and shopping for her and taking her to her appointments. And then I moved home at a certain point in time for the end of her life to help take care of her.
So, there was just all these things that I think that in order to make an adaptation that feels like there is some sort of like passion to it, and not just kind of a bloodless sort of money grab, it feels like the key is kind of to find what you identify with in the material. Like, what really speaks to you?”
On What the Cast Learned About Themselves From Working on American Fiction:
Sterling K. Brown: “I would say, happiness is not a possibility unless you’re willing to live your authentic truth. That’s what I learned from Cliff, and that’s what I hope to carry throughout my life.”
Erika Alexander: “That Black showbiz gives you more. It’s always had to. It’s the burden of being here in this world, on this planet, certainly. And I think the 13%, the African Americans are some of the biggest culture makers in world history. We continue to ask these important questions and put up defining pieces of work that tell a story about us, but also tell a story about the world. We need more of that, and we need to support them.”
Tracee Ellis Ross: “It is better than you think to work with incredible talent. To be able to surrender into the being and not the acting. And it was an honor. It just really, it was a treat for me.”
Jeffrey Wright: “For me, what I have learned over time, what I’ve gotten better at is yes, I can interpret a script. But what I’ve gotten better at and what I find to be even more critical is finding the collaborators to work with that will allow us all to do our best work and to enjoy it. And this experience only reinforced that for me and I don’t just mean, you know, the actors here, but also the crew.
There was a sense of community that can be wonderful on a movie set, and it can also be incredibly cynical and cold and strange. Movie sets, people who are outside of our business don’t really appreciate that film crews are among the hardest working people across any industry. They work tirelessly. They work often, you know, without thanks. But when it’s done right and when we all come together, whether there’s a carpenter over there, an electrician there, the teamster, you know, who’s driving us, everyone comes together. Cinematographer…we all come together as this microcosm.
And when we start to do something that we think is interesting, we think is new, we think might be good, there’s an extra level of pride that enters into the work. An extra level of care for detail that I find to be really magical and really gratifying. Because my role at the center of it is to just do what I do, but without all the components conspiring together, it’s really meaningless.
[…]Cord created this opportunity from the air and from a book. He had the tenacity, the wit, and the wisdom to get it done, to recognize that this was a story that wanted to be told, but also wanted to be seen. And without him, we’re not here. It’s the collaboration.
Yes, the play is the thing. But also, the collaboration is the thing. And that’s what I’ll take away from this.”
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American Fiction will be released in select theaters on December 15, 2023, expanding into additional theaters on December 22.
