December 06, 2008
Jeffrey Wright '87: Year in review
Jeffrey Wright ‘87 has had a busy year, in movies and otherwise. Logan Hill of New York Magazine takes the occassion of yesterday’s premiere of Cadillac Records—in which Wright plays bluesman Muddy Waters—to take stock.
Aside from roles in W. and Quantum of Solace, Wright was seen all over the campaign trail supporting Barack Obama. Hill’s piece notes Wright’s early support for the President-Elect:
“I remember we threw a fund-raiser for Obama’s Senate campaign in Central Park four years ago,” Wright recalls. “We struggled to get 50 people to attend that thing. I had faith in him, but it’d be a bald-faced lie to say I thought it was going to happen in four years. It’s mind-blowing.”
Hill uses that story as a stepping stone to discuss Wright’s personal background and past roles—including the obligatory, and necessary, mention of Wright’s stage breakthrough in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, in which he played Roy Cohn’s transsexual nurse (a role he reprised in HBO’s wonderful screen adaptation in 2004)—while attempting to capture the reasons for Wright’s frequent portrayal of historical figures.
Biopics often get a bad rap, but Wright defends his proclivity for them as part of his special talent for exposing “what we haven’t seen”—men like his grandfather who were marginalized by this country. “My grandfather, he grew up in rural Virginia,” says Wright. “He was a waterman on the Chesapeake Bay and farmed a few acres of land—was gone before the sun came up and didn’t stop working till after it’d gone down. Worked his ass off, for 88 years. But I never got the sense, from the mainstream perspective, that his was the all-American story.”
Playing a Waters or a [Jean-Michel] Basquiat [in Basquiat] is a small way of finally placing such men at the center of the culture. “They were devalued when they were living and there’s a devaluation of them now, which film and telling their stories can help begin to right.” But not, he’s quick to point out, as a way to sanctify them: Wright argued with Basquiat director Julian Schnabel over making the painter “more dangerous,” and Waters isn’t exactly a model of moral purity. “It’s sex, booze, and the blues, you know?”
After a discussion of the Muddy Waters role, the article concludes with some thoughts from Wright on the ongoing legal matter stemming from a July incident at a Shreveport, La. bar, when Wright, Josh Brolin and others were arrested after filming on W. wrapped. The details of that incident remain sketchy, but it appears that the actors and other crew members became involved in some sort of altercation with local police at closing time. Reports of excessive police force during the incident have surfaced, but it is unclear if anyone involved suffered injuries. At the time of the interview, Wright was scheduled to enter a plea on December 2, but offered some general thoughts on the situation.
“It wouldn’t be wise of me to talk about it now,” he says, “but I will say I thought of Obama after it happened, as I was trying to think about why the hell we’d been placed in that position. I recalled how he displays this talent for converting liability into asset. And my hope is that I can do the same with this incident.”
The focus of his response will not be himself, he adds, but the more systemic problems in Louisiana. “There are large numbers of people better than me, who’ve been hurt far worse in similar incidents down there,” says Wright. “So perhaps we can deflect some of the disproportionate attention that’s been shined on us positively toward them.
“I’m trying to craft it into a positive experience … with great difficulty.”
According to the latest news reports on the Shreveport fracas, the case may conclude quietly. The December 2 hearing was postponed by the Louisiana judge presiding over the case to allow prosecutors and lawyers for the actors to continue discussions regarding a resolution out of court.
Dave Nardolillo '98 | December 6, 2008 06:13 AM | Alumni
Dave Rogers | December 8, 2008 12:51 PM:
Why can't actors (and other entertainers) just act and keep their political opinions to themselves?
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