Brown won an Emmy for his portrayal of Christopher Darden in The People v. O.J. Simpson, and another for This Is Us. He now appears in the film American Fiction. He spoke with Terry Gross about losing his father, how his feelings about the O.J. Simpson case changed, and prejudice he faced in Hollywood.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Happy New Year. We're continuing our holiday week series, featuring a few of the 2024 interviews we particularly enjoyed. Today, it's an interview with actor Sterling K. Brown. I've admired his work since I first saw him in the miniseries, The People vs. O.J. Simpson. He played Christopher Darden, one of O.J.
Simpson's prosecutors in one of the most controversial trials of the 20th century. Brown won an Emmy for that performance. Since then, he became well-known in the popular NBC series This Is Us, a show that brought many viewers to tears, and won him another Emmy. He took off long enough from that job to play a prince in Black Panther.
He's also appeared in comedy, including a memorable Emmy-nominated performance in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He was nominated for an Oscar last year for his role in the Oscar-winning film American Fiction. We started our interview talking about American fiction. It stars Jeffrey Wright as a novelist who is black.
He writes about fiction that's pretty obscure, like a novel based on the Greek tragedy The Persians by Aeschylus. No one wants to publish his new novel. It seems to him that the only books white publishers want by black authors are books about being poor or in gangs or addicted to drugs or being a pregnant teenager.
To prove his point, he writes a book conforming to those expectations, using a pen name to disguise his identity. He's offered a huge advance, the book becomes a bestseller, and he gets even more money when the film rights are sold. But the pseudonym leads to unexpected trouble. Sterling K. Brown plays the writer's brother.
He's a plastic surgeon who's currently having money problems because his wife has left him and has taken half his practice after discovering he's having a gay relationship. He's just come out as gay and is going a little overboard in reconstructing his identity. The film is a funny satire about race and the publishing industry, while at the same time probing complicated family relationships.
Sterling K. Brown, welcome to Fresh Air. So happy to have you on the show.
Terry, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
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