‘American Fiction’ Star Jeffrey Wright On The Birth Of His Acting Dream, Learning Respect On Set From Harrison Ford And His Take On A Black Bond
deadline.comJeffrey Wright, star of Cord Jefferson’s provocative debut feature American Fiction, says he felt a personal affinity with his character Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison in the film, in part because of the challenges Monk experiences with regard to family issues.
Monk is an author and a professor of English literature who discovers he may have to lower his standards to attain some kind of glory in the phony world of publishing.
We follow him as he takes an enforced leave of absence to care for his ailing mother, a situation that the actor himself is painfully familiar with — Wright’s mother died a year before he received Jefferson’s script. DEADLINE: You were born and raised in Washington, D.C.
and American Fiction is based on a novel set in D.C. Did anything in the script make you think of your own upbringing? JEFFREY WRIGHT: Yeah.
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