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JEFFREY WRIGHT: Yeah.
Cord Jefferson, who wrote and adapted this from Percival Everetts novelErasure, really made it his own.
Jeffrey Wright in ‘American Fiction.‘MGM/Everett Collection
We shot in Boston.
Cord wanted to shoot in New York, so he wanted to take it out of D.C.
I dont think he has had necessarily a familiarity with D.C.
Sterling K. Brown, Jeffrey Wright and Erika Alexander inAmerican Fiction.Claire Folger.MGM/Everett Collection
I think D.C. probably doesnt have the tax incentives either to make it feasible, at least now.
So that was one adjustment that he made.
He also adjusted a lot of the catalyzing moments in the novel.
He reshaped them to suit the cinema in a way that made the novel less informative for this.
So I focused on the script.
DEADLINE: Such as?
Raised by my mother and my aunt, and my aunt came to live with us.
So, that is what pulled me in deep into the emotional center of the story.
And it really as well, I think, compelled me to want to play this story.
I dont know why.
In art [its] that art-life, chicken-egg thing.
But yeah, this was certainly close to me.
There wasnt a lot of hoop jumping that I needed to do for find this character.
Youve heard this, right?
And so its not unappreciated.
I guess its a healthy side of this peculiar work that we find ourselves in, yeah.
And I laugh, because oftentimes the white folk are the first to take offence.
WRIGHT: Without a fluency in the understanding or in the language required.
Well, I wanted to play that scene so badly.
Cord and Percival Everett are fluent in these things.
And so I was like, yes, lets do that.
And frankly, its not solely a certain demographic that at times lacks fluency.
Sometimes there are those among us who we think should be more fluent who are not.
But theres not a universal clarity among Black folks on such matters.
Sometimes if youre too close to it, you cant see it objectively.
DEADLINE: No, thats true.
Same goes in the theater.
I want to write what I want to write.
DEADLINE: So what is your perspective?
WRIGHT: Oh, I mean, thats a long conversation.
DEADLINE: We have a bit of time.
He is flawed and he is maybe a bit overly arrogant.
And so I love the ambiguity thats born of that scene.
I think that somewhere in between the two of them is a really genuine and useful thesis.
How did you work all that out?
So when we got on set, there wasnt a lot of, what do you mean by this?
I think thats true for all of us.
And it was more about, OK, how do you want to tell this?
And so I was pretty clear on the various iterations of this man.
And we just went after it, and Cord as well.
So again, we wanted to see to it that imperfections of Monk were clear.
And as well, thats why I found that scene with Issa Rae so critical.
And also, when were in this kind of confrontation, which is not in the book.
In the book, they never meet.
Cord wanted them to meet in this film.
And also, we talked as well about the relationship to Lorraine [the familys Black housekeeper].
Those were conversations that we had often throughout the process.
DEADLINE: Because she was calling you sir, wasnt she?
WRIGHT: Mr. Monk, and all of that.
That was very important.
DEADLINE: Easy on the bowing and scraping?
WRIGHT: Right, right, yes, yes.
And Myra Lucretia Taylor who plays Lorraine is such a wonderful actor.
And I just said to myself, this is it.
He went through a bunch of auditions, he saw a bunch of people auditioning and he cast her.
And some great directors have said thats 90% of directing.
He assembled a brilliant circle of actors.
DEADLINE: Myra shaped her career on the stage.
Doyou have plans to ever return to the theater?
WRIGHT: Oh yeah, yeah.
Certainly at some point I will get back on the stage.
Got to make space for it.
DEADLINE: Are there any classic roles you want to do or new work?
WRIGHT: If theres a new play that comes my way that is interesting?
Yeah, that could be possible.
Could be a bit of Willie Shakespeare.
Theres some stuff out there.
But Im in no rush necessarily.
I saw that my first trip to London in 99.
And I said, wow.
It was just him up there [on the stage].
DEADLINE: Phenomenal performance.
WRIGHT: He just barely moved.
And I said, oh wow.
DEADLINE: I think that had something to do with his classical training.
WRIGHT: Of course.
DEADLINE: And youre classically trained also?
WRIGHT: Well yeah, for the most part in my own way.
But [OTooles performance] also came from a history of work on the stage.
He came to seeTop Dog/Underdog[the play by Suzan-Lori Parks transferred to Broadway in 2002].
Which was maybe, I guess five or six years after Id seen that.
He wrote to Mos and me, and it said, in essence: wonderful play.
I loved it but damn it, I couldnt see a thing.
He said the lighting was too dark.
But I have that letter somewhere.
I need to frame it, yeah.
But oh man, that was the first piece of theater that I saw in London.
It was a great start.
WRIGHT: Of course I remember.
In fact, I appreciated it, the question…
DEADLINE: It was 1996, was that your first film?
WRIGHT: Well, I started in fits and starts because mainly I was doing theater.
The first film I ever did, actually, I cant find any seeming existence of this film.
It was some weird historical quasi-documentary about the history of the White House.
And I played a freeman who was a carpet painter, and we filmed it in the White House.
I was just out of school.
DEADLINE: Spike Lee took that to Cannes.
WRIGHT: Thats right.
And then after that, or maybe before around the same time, I did a film calledPresumed Innocent.
The legendary Alan Pakula directed.
Sadly, the late Alan Pakula, with Harrison Ford.
And if you could find me in that movie, Ill give you a tuppence.
DEADLINE: Whats your role in that?
WRIGHT: I play a young district attorney.
And so I got that gig, and it was two weeks rehearsing and on set.
It was a really wonderful introduction to a film set.
At one point, Alan Pakula calls out to Harrison.
In between takes, he calls out Harrison and Harrison answered, Sir.
But it was something maybe even a bit more honorable about this stuff and it was cool.
DEADLINE: Before that moment, what had you thought the motion picture industry was then?
WRIGHT: I just didnt expect that I would go back to boys school.
But yeah, when I thought of movie making, its not the first thing that came to mind.
And how would I know?
Id never been on a film set before.
WRIGHT: Oh, I think Ive had a nice run of it.
Leave that to someone else.
It was a great run.
And so many of the crew have worked on all of them or many of them.
Its a family business at the end of the day.
Its massive, but it is a nice feeling on set.
DEADLINE: In your opinion should there, or will there be, a Black Bond?
WRIGHT: I mean, its feasible.
Theyre out there now.
Those guys are out there now at the underbelly of all of this, yeah.
So why not, if you find the right actor.
