Jeffrey Wright '83 Stars in American Fiction

With the Golden Globes grabbing headlines this week, a St. Albans alumnus is being recognized for giving one of the top performances of 2023.

Jeffrey Wright ‘83, star of American Fiction, was nominated for Best Actor in a Motion Picture for his role of Thelonious "Monk" Ellison. Already a winner of an Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe, Wright has starred in feature films and TV shows such as Westworld, Angels in America, and multiple films in the James Bond series.

At St. Albans, however, Wright never stepped foot on a stage. As fellow alum Gene Wang ‘87 wrote in a 2019 Washington Post profile of Wright, he was a lacrosse star at St. Albans. He won MVP, the Coach’s Award, and the Robert Rice Award for best all-around athlete at Commencement.

Wright told the Post, “What I remember most about [my] experience here, one of the greatest games I’ve ever been a part of at this school, my freshman year, junior varsity lacrosse against Episcopal. We won in four overtimes. I had a couple saves. It was, for me, as meaningful as any athletic event I’ve ever been a part of.”

It wasn’t until Wright arrived at Amherst College that he discovered his knack for performing. Since then, Wright has done nothing but shine. In 1994, he won a Tony Award for his performance in Angels in America: Perestroika.

While the stage wasn’t central to Wright’s St. Albans experience, he has credited the Skip Grant Program with playing a formative role in the development of his identity and storytelling capacity. 

Hailing from Southeast Washington, DC, Wright entered St. Albans as Form A student in 1976. Wright has spoken candidly about the layers of culture shock and identity crisis he experienced as a student at St. Albans. 

“For me, [my] awareness of the world was augmented by the daily journey to this place from Southeast DC and then back,” Wright shared in a 2010 speech at St. Albans. 

He continued in his speech, saying that for the group of students who made that daily journey, “protecting our sense of cultural identity was not easy. We had to reshape ourselves — delicately preserving our best original parts and adding the best of what this school had to offer […] That informs my acting – always having had to be adept at translating.”

Wright makes it clear that St. Albans always felt like home. The network of support surrounding him here was the cornerstone of that feeling. Skip Grant was the main reason why. 

“I was a RISK student – a proud disciple of Skip Grant, who to a young guy was as much a man as could be imagined – an inspiration. A father figure to some of us who, like me, had no relationship with our actual fathers.”

Founded in 1968 as the RISK Program at a time when St. Albans was, according to Grant, “99-percent white” and eventually named for the program’s long-time director, the Skip Grant program offers academic and social support and guidance to St. Albans students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented at the school. Through the work of the program and other initiatives, St. Albans’ student body is now 42% people of color.

Students in the program receive additional mentorship, tutorial assistance, and support throughout their tenure at the school and a connection that lasts a lifetime.

OJ Johnson ’97, now serving as director of the program, shared that “the Skip Grant students benefit from being at St. Albans, but most importantly the school also benefits from them. Every day I am reminded that St. Albans is a better school for having these phenomenal young men as part of our community.”

“Skip Grant, what he and this school have built, and what he represents, and for my mom, they were the poles for me and this place,” Wright told the Washington Post in 2019. 

Now starring in American Fiction, Wright’s name is gracing headlines yet again. Vox called his performance “career-crowning.” He’s garnered best actor nominations from the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and Independent Spirit Awards. We’ll be keeping our eyes open for the release of the Oscar nominations on January 23, 2024.

If you’ve made it to this point in the article, we’re imploring you to buy your ticket to this incredible film. We are so proud to call Jeffrey Wright an alum, and please join us in congratulating him on his extraordinary performance.