Jeffrey Wright gave a moving acceptance speech at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
At a ceremony in Santa Monica on Sunday, the 58-year-old actor became visibly emotional as he accepted the award for Best Performance in a Leading Role for his role as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in American fiction.
After taking the stage, Wright acknowledged the award’s host Rustin Costar Colman Domingo, telling the actor, “To receive this from you, Colman, man, it’s just a wonderful gift.”
“It’s funny, you go to those award shows, you kind of get tired of them. And then you get one, it changes the vibe a little bit,” Wright joked.
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The Hunger Games alum also acknowledged his company’s “beautiful work” in the category — Jessica Chastain, Trace Lysette, Natalie Portman, Judy Reyes, Franz Rogowski, Andrew Scott, Teyana Taylor, Greta Lee and Teo Yoo.
Jeffrey Wright at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
Kevin Winter/Getty
He then recalled his first appearance at the Spirit Awards — a memory that “adds wonderful memories” to the ceremony, he said.
“The last time, or the first time I was here, at the Independent Spirit Awards, I had the opportunity to meet Muhammad Ali for the first time,” he said, “who was here with his film. When we were kings and who, of course, was my absolute hero and remains so to this day.”
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The recipient thanked actors Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross, Erika Alexander and John Ortiz, as well as “everyone who worked on this movie,” before giving an emotional nod to his family.
“My son is here, Elijah, I love you,” he said as the camera panned to his son, who had been sitting next to him all evening.
“You and your sister and my family are the sun I revolve around. I’m nowhere without you,” he added as Elijah became visibly emotional.
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Jeffrey Wright in ‘American Fiction’.
Claire Folger
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At the end, Wright thanked American fiction screenwriter Cord Jefferson — who won the Spirit Award for Best Screenplay earlier in the evening — and Percival Everett, the film’s author Deletionaccording to which the script was adapted.
“Percival Everett has written a beautiful story about a family and a man facing personal challenges and cultural challenges, some of which are as old as our country,” Wright said. “You only have to look at the news from what is considered our political sphere to realize that this business continues.”
“But Cord, what you did, at the very least, was give us a chance to laugh at the bloody utter ignorant absurdity of it all and I thank you for that and thank you all,” he finished.
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American fiction follows Monk (Wright), a black author frustrated because his books are not selling well while books full of racial stereotypes are selling.
He decides to write a novel under a pseudonym that parodies the books he sees as attracting attention, and when it becomes a huge success, he finds himself caught in a web of lies that could have dire consequences.
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Source: HIS Education