Cord Jefferson, the Emmy-winning Watchmen writer, opened up recently about his new film American Fiction.

This film marks his directorial debut, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Cord Jefferson and similarities between American Fiction and his own life

The hype around this new film is picking up. At the Toronto Film Festival, it won the People's Choice Award.

The movie is based on Percival Everett's novel, Erasure. It's about Monk Ellison, a frustrated novelist. Ellison's sister suddenly dies, and Monk returns to his home to take care of his mother, who has dementia. There, he deals with his brother, who is out of control. Ellison begins a relationship with the neighbor, and from here, he channels his frustrations and creates a novel called My Pafology, which turns into a hit, placing him into the publishing world, grappling with his identity.

The film stars Jeffrey Wright (Ellison). Also, Tracee Ellis Ross, Leslie Uggams, Sterling K. Brown, and Erike Alexander all have parts.

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He talked about what it was like creating the movie and what inspired him to take it on.

“All of the professional stuff — what people believe is in the realm of possibility for Black creatives is what I've been thinking about since I was working in journalism,” Jefferson said. “But more so that I have two older siblings, and we've had weird relationships over the years. We have a very overbearing father who looms large in our life and always will, even after he passes. My mother died of cancer, and there was a period when the responsibility for her care fell to the brother who was living in the same town; he shouldered that responsibility when my other brother and I were gallivanting around the world, living our lives.”

The director also noted, “There were all these crazy, weird coincidental references to my life [in the book]. If it would have just been a satire, I probably would have been excited enough. But there was so much overlap with my life that it felt eerie. I really did feel like somebody sat down and was like, ‘I'm writing a novel specifically for Cord Jefferson.'”

Obviously, Cord Jefferson took a lot of his own life experiences and added them into American Fiction.

The film will have a limited theatrical release on December 15 and expanded on December 22.