Jeffrey Wright and his character in 1999’s ‘Ride with the Devil’.Photo:Jason Mendez/Getty, Everett
Jason Mendez/Getty, Everett
Jeffrey Wrightis recalling a time when he refused to censor an explicit word in a line reading forRide with the Devil.
In the 1999 western drama, Wright, 58, played Daniel Holt, a freed Black man fighting in an informal Confederate militant unit during the Civil War, alongside a cast that includedTobey Maguire,JewelandSkeet Ulrich.
While promoting his new movieAmerican Fiction, Wright shared during an appearance onEntertainment Weekly’sAround the Tableseries with costarsTracee Ellis Ross,Sterling K. Brownand Erika Alexander that he was asked to censor the N-word in a pivotal scene while re-recording dialogue for a version of the film intended to play on airplanes.
“In this scene in which he has kind of the apex of his awakening, his need to emancipate himself, he says ‘being that man’s friend was no more than being his n—– and I will never again be anyone’s n—–,’ " Wright recalled. “It’s such a self empowering, empowering statement and understanding of the word.”
When Wright said he completed “the airplane version of dialogue,” he was asked to substitute the N-word in that scene and instead walked away from the dialogue recording session entirely.“There were a few curse words, and they [said] the [N-word] here, we’d like to change that to Negro or whatever the choice was,” he recalled. “And I said, ‘Nah, nah that’s not happening,’ and I headed out the door to my car.”
The actor then added, “They found some other [actor] to come in and do that one word, apparently, so that the airplane folk would be comfy and in the darkness of their own ignorance of the language of race.”
Jeffrey Wright in ‘Ride with the Devil’.Everett
Everett
Ride with the Devil, which came roughly a decade after Wright first broke into Hollywood, did not make a significant impression on audiences. It only ever grossed $635,096 in its limited theatrical release, perBox Office Mojo.
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Wright shared the story as he and his costars spoke to the themes of America’s relationship with race at play inAmerican Fiction.He said the anecdote relates to “understanding the meaning or meanings of the N-word,” as it is used in the new movie.
Jeffrey Wright on Nov. 27, 2023.Bryan Bedder/Variety via Getty
Bryan Bedder/Variety via Getty
InAmerican Fiction, Wright plays author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, described in an official synopsis as “a frustrated novelist who’s fed up with the establishment profiting from ‘Black’ entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes.”
“To prove his point, Monk uses a pen name to write an outlandish ‘Black’ book of his own, a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain,” the synopsis adds, stating that the film “confronts our culture’s obsession with reducing people to outrageous stereotypes.”
American Fictionis in theaters now.
source: people.com
