Reuters
[Source: Reuters]
Actor Jeffrey Wright wants audiences to know the comedy-drama film “American Fiction” is meant to capture the “humanness” of its characters as they work to be seen for who they are, rather than how others perceive them to be.
“He wants to be true to himself and his interests and his inclination,” Wright said about his character, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison.
“American Fiction,” directed by Cord Jefferson and based on the 2001 novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett, focuses on Thelonious, a professor and novelist who is having no luck in publishing a book based on his personal interests. But then he jokingly writes an outrageously stereotypical “Black” book out of frustration, which becomes an instant success.
“American Fiction,” distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, arrives in select theaters on Dec. 15 with a wider release on Dec. 22. It takes on themes of family trauma, loss and acceptance.
Wright this week received a best actor Golden Globe nomination for the role. The film also stars Tracee Ellis Ross and Sterling K. Brown as Thelonious’ sister and brother, Lisa Ellison and Clifford Ellison, Issa Rae as the author Sintara Golden, and Erika Alexander as Thelonious’ girlfriend, Coraline.
Throughout the film, Thelonious and his family must battle their own issues while reckoning with the expectations placed upon them as a Black family in the United States.
“I think he (Thelonious) desires to be free, intellectually, creatively, professionally,” Wright said.
For the Golden Globe award-winning actor, it is important for people to understand that this is not a story about Thelonious having an “identity crisis,” but rather him trying to cope with the way people view him as a Black man in society.
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