The Big Picture

Sterling K. Brown shines in Cord Jefferson’s feature directorial debut, American Fiction. During an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Brown revisits doing one especially unforgettable scene with Leslie Uggams who plays his character’s mother in the movie. In addition, Brown reveals what happened on the set of The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story that convinced him, “I’m okay. I can do this.”

The competition is fierce, but hopes are high that Sterling K. Brown will get the critical praise and awards season love he deserves for his work in Cord Jefferson’s feature directorial debut, American Fiction.

Brown plays Cliff, Jeffrey Wright’s character’s brother, in the TIFF 2023 Audience Award-winning film. Both struggle to support their mother (Leslie Uggams) after her dementia diagnosis while also trying to power through a number of personal challenges. Many of Monk’s (Wright) frustrations come from seeing other novelists profiting from Black stories that rely on offensive tropes, and his inability to let others in, even those who love him for who he is. As for Cliff, while successful professionally, he considers himself the black sheep of the family. Recently out, Cliff feels as though he’s never been accepted by his family, and possibly still isn’t.

Brown shines via a staggeringly magnetizing and warm performance in American Fiction, work that powers a number of the film’s most memorable moments, including a particularly crushing story beat for Cliff and his mother. With American Fiction celebrating a limited theatrical release this weekend, I got the chance to chat with Brown about that particular scene, his collaboration with Cord Jefferson, and yet another unforgettable American Fiction scene, the impossibly loving and inspiring moment shared between Cliff and Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor), the Ellison family’s live-in housekeeper.

Hear about all of that and more straight from Brown in the video interview at the top of this article or in the transcript below.

American Fiction A novelist who’s fed up with the establishment profiting from “Black” entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain. Release Date December 15, 2023 Director Cord Jefferson Rating R Runtime 117 minutes

PERRI NEMIROFF: I was watching a bunch of Cord’s interviews and he kept talking about how the first time he read Erasure, it felt like the book was for him, like it was talking to him, and I feel like American Fiction is going to have that effect on a lot of people out there. Is there another movie you’ve seen that felt like it was talking to you, like a character was looking at you?

STERLING K. BROWN: Wow, that’s a really good question. I love cinema and I think I’ve always been asked to see myself in other people’s stories. So I can say something like William Wallace. When William Wallace is on the rack and he has this cry for freedom or whatnot. I don’t know what it is, it’s probably every 17/18-year-old-boy at that time just felt like, “Oh, this feels like me,” even though I’m not Scottish. I’m not fighting for independence. But I think knowing and the desire to want autonomy and fight for it, this sounds so silly, but I really relate to that. But then, I can relate to anything. Keep going with your next question because something else may come back to me.

I’m here for all the examples you want to give!

My next question is about working with Cord, of course. It’s his first feature and I have a feeling there’s going to be many more on the horizon, so what is something about his approach to the work as an actor’s director that you’re really excited for more actors out there to get to experience in the future?

BROWN: He’s an ego-less human being. He is incredibly confident and competent in what it is that he knows and he is willing to delegate those things that he doesn’t to people who are as smart or smarter than him in other arenas of life. And I feel like that sort of makes for a wonderful combination of, “I’m gonna exude that that I know, and I’m gonna be comfortable with that that I don’t, and so if you guys can help me fill in the gaps, then we get a chance to collaborate.” That’s what a collaboration is and that’s how he trusted his actors, from casting them and then to seeing them execute on set. Very few notes. Every once in a while, suggestions, et cetera, but he gave us the space to play and it was fun. Every second on that set was fun.

Image via Orion Pictures

Many follow up questions to that. First, does he have a monitor dance? Is there anything he does behind the monitor that signals to you that he is really digging a take?

BROWN: He’ll sort of go back and forth. You’ll see a little side movement type of thing, and he smiles. He has a big, beautiful, effortless smile, and so when you see that you’re like, “Alright, we’re in the pocket.”

I love it! Given how you were just talking about your collaboration with him, when you first took the role, what part of Cliff or his experience were you most looking forward to playing? But then I also want to know a quality of his that you found along the way that became more creatively fulfilling to explore than you ever could have imagined at the start.

BROWN: I think Cliff’s the youngest brother and so there’s a certain level of petulance to Cliff that comes to me naturally as the youngest brother in my sibling trio in birth order, and then I have a little brother and little sister who are adopted that came around 20 some odd years after me. Then in terms of adding to my own personal repertoire, I feel like there’s a level of simpatico with Cliff in that you cannot be your happiest self unless you are your most authentic self. I think that this sort of just cemented the lesson that I’ve already known, that you can’t live your life for other people’s benefit if you’re sort of dying on the inside.

I’ll go there next with a very big scene for you in the film that just broke my heart into a million pieces. Can you tell me about tackling the dance and also the reaction when his mother say, “I always knew you weren’t a queer?” It’s beautifully scripted, of course, but a moment like that has to be pitch perfect, and there’s just this incredible weight and sadness that takes over the character immediately after she says that. It rocked me.

BROWN: Thank you. Listen, in my family it’s interesting because I’m from St. Louis, Missouri and there is a sort of tacit level of acceptance of “alternative lifestyles” as long as people don’t “throw things in your face,” right? So I think the way in which he was dealt with by his mother and father, they may have had a knowledge of his gayness, but as long as he was not too ostentatious with it, then they could sort of have plausible deniability, right? So him dancing with his mother trying to give her a little bit of joy in these new circumstances that she finds herself in, because she has been autonomous and living in a home by herself, et cetera, and now is having to be in an assisted living facilities, [he was] like, “Maybe I can help to bring her a little joy.” She likes music, he knows that she likes to dance. And then it becomes interrupted by this idea that he can’t still be who he is with her and be accepted, which is heartbreaking for me, too. And playing it with Leslie Uggams, who is just a treasure and just nailed it, there’s two things happening in terms of her dementia because you’re like, “How cognizant is or isn’t she?” And does it even matter at the end of the day?

How ‘American Crime Story’ Convinced Sterling K. Brown “I Can Do This”
Image via Orion Pictures

I wanted to turn one other idea that happens at the end of the movie towards you and your career. When Lorraine tells Cliff, “You can’t impose, you’re family,” and you see your demeanor completely change, it is another really exceptional performance beat right there, so I want to know, do you have a moment like that in your career, a time when maybe you were nervous to step on set and join an ensemble, but there was such warmth and support there that you found you were able to deliver your best work because those people were there for you?

BROWN: [Claps] Great question, Perri! I gotta clap for that one.

I’ll take it! [Laughs]

BROWN: People vs O.J. [Simpson: American Crime Story], I was very much feeling like one of these actors is not like the other because I know who all of them are and none of them know who I am. And so my first scene on set was with Courtney B. Vance, and a friend of mine told me early in my career, said that you cannot be a fan and in the game at the same time. So you look at all these wonderful people around you, whether it’s Courtney or John Travolta or Sarah Paulson or Nathan Lane or David Schwimmer, or whomever, and you say, “I’m a big fan,” and then you say, “Let’s play ball,” right? And Courtney, being the first scene between Cochran and Darden, was so gracious and so warm, I said, “Oh, I can do this dance with people whose dance steps I really appreciate.” I was like, “I’m okay. I can do this,” and that was a great moment.

American Fiction is now playing in select theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes.

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