‘American Fiction’ Director Cord Jefferson on Hollywood’s New Shuffle

Before he read “Erasure,” Percival Everett’s satirical novel about Black representation in the publishing industry, Cord Jefferson had never really thought of himself as a movie director. He had hoped to direct for television — his writing credits include several episodes of “Master of None,” “The Good Place” and HBO’s “Watchmen,” for which he shared an Emmy in 2020 — but even that seemed like a stretch.

“I thought they might let me direct something that I helped write or create,” he said in a recent interview. “And even then it would be like Episode 4 of 10, not the pilot or the finale.”

Things changed in December 2020, when Jefferson, 41, picked up “Erasure” and became enchanted. The book, published in 2001, is the story of Thelonious Ellison, known as Monk, a disillusioned Black intellectual whose mocking attempt at writing a stereotypical “ghetto novel” becomes a straightforward best seller.

“Twenty pages in, I knew I had to write a film adaptation,” Jefferson said. “By the time I finished the book, I knew I had to direct it.”

“American Fiction,” his take on the novel — and feature film debut as both a writer and director — is in theaters Friday. It stars Jeffrey Wright as Monk, Issa Rae as a rival novelist and Tracee Ellis Ross and Sterling K. Brown as Monk’s siblings. In September, it won the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival, a precursor for an Academy Awards nomination for best picture for the past 11 years.

Over lunch in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, Jefferson, a former journalist and editor at Gawker, discussed his personal connection to Everett’s story, his adoration of the writer-director Nicole Holofcener and shedding tears in a pitch meeting. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.