Tag: character building

American Fiction is primarily about a writer and professor named Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (played by Jeffrey Wright), whose attempt to write a book satirizing the publishing industry brings him unexpected, mortifying success. But Cord Jefferson’s critically acclaimed directorial debut doesn’t just focus on Monk’s professional world—we also get to see how Monk’s ambitious, highly educated family affects his life and outlook. Struggling to care for his ailing mother, Monk also suffers an unexpected loss that brings his family together at their beach house. It’s then that we meet Cliff Ellison, Monk’s surgeon brother, played by Sterling K. Brown.

Brown, best known for his Emmy-winning turns on the TV series This Is Us and The People v. O.J. Simpson, delivers a wide range of layers with Cliff, a man at his own pivotal turning point. Divorced after his wife found him in bed with another man, Cliff is now embarking on his new chapter as an out gay man. “We’re finding him at a point in time in his life where things are in a bit of upheaval,” Brown tells Vanity Fair. “He’s sort of coloring outside the lines, but he is coloring with colors that feel authentic to him for the first time.”

Brown was first drawn to American Fiction because of Jefferson’s script, which is based on the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett. “I laughed, I cried, I got a chance to see a world populated with people that looked like me in a story that we don’t typically get to occupy.”

Brown focused on the script for his inspiration for Cliff, while also pulling experiences from his own life. He thought about family and friends he’s known who had come out as gay or who had struggled with coming out, especially with “the societal pressures to try to fit in and how those can be internalized until ultimately they don’t work or they’re still being internalized.”

He also related to Cliff’s experience of being an outsider, even within his own family. “I’m sure most of us feel this from time to time, like you are on the outside looking in—that everybody sort of understands each other, but they don’t quite understand you,” he says. Raised in Missouri with two brothers and two sisters, Brown raised eyebrows within his community when he decided to pursue acting. He even resisted it in the beginning, enrolling at Stanford to study economics before eventually switching to focus on acting.

He remembers doing a play at church at a young age, when one of the deacons said a prayer: “Lord, even though they’re trying to deceive us, hopefully they can find a way to sort of elevate you in the process with the show.” Brown says he was struck by the “fundamental misunderstanding of what actors do. Because I think a lot of people think that we’re untrustworthy because we’re so good at pretending we’re something that we’re not. But I think when you’re really doing it right, you are living so much within the given circumstances of the character that you were simply acting as if this was your truth.”

In the case of Cliff, he’s all about finding his truth. And he’s hard to miss in any scene—he’s got a bit of an Afro, some flashier clothing than his professor brother, and he’s often walking around without a shirt, his chiseled physique on full display. Brown says there was no mention of how fit Cliff was in the script, but it made sense for where he was at that point in his life. “Listen, anybody who’s been divorced for a while, whatever community, if you’re trying to get back out in these streets, you try to keep it tight,” he says with a laugh.

His overall look is consistent with his newfound freedom, including his choice to go shirtless whenever he damn well pleases. “I think even in terms of how uncovered he is, it is also sort of a cinematic expression of freedom,” Brown says. “You’re probably supposed to have clothes on right now, but Cliff is like the honeybadger—he don’t give a fuck.”

American Fiction gave Brown an opportunity to show off his comedy chops in scenes between himself and Wright—scenes that reveal the complicated and often funny dynamic between brothers. (At one point, Monk points out that he, too, is a doctor, and Cliff shoots back, “Maybe if we need to revive a sentence.”) They throw insults back and forth, but also know each other’s real weaknesses and vulnerabilities. “He and his brother have historically been at odds with one another,” says Brown. “I think being gay sort of made him a bit of a black sheep.”

For most of his life, Cliff tried to conform to what was expected of him. Brown, who shot most of his scenes in the film over nine days, found freedom in playing a man who has blown up his life for a fresh start. “He is delighting in the messiness of his life,” he says. “It’s not always comfortable. It doesn’t always feel good, but I think he knows that only through using his colors can he find his way into real happiness.”

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When we first meet Paul Cho (Young Mazino) in Beef, he’s really busy—playing video games on his computer—and can’t be bothered with his older brother Danny’s (Steven Yeun) problems. “I’m in the middle of a game,” he hollers from his messy bedroom as his brother lectures him to pick up after himself.

Paul is a classic younger sibling in many ways, shirking financial responsibilities (he lives rent-free with his brother) and pursuing his dodgy passions (video games, working out, and investing in shady cryptocurrency). Paul could have remained a himbo caricature, but thanks to Mazino’s breakout performance, we can’t help but root for him, even when he makes questionable decisions. Even as Danny stays at the center of the story, Paul goes on his own journey, falling into a catfish relationship and then an affair with a married woman, and eventually getting out from under his older brother’s dark shadow. “Paul is definitely somebody I understand,” Mazino tells Vanity Fair. “I understand his head space and the kind of mentality where you feel like the world is against you and you’re in this bubble.”

For Mazino, who grew up in the suburbs of Maryland, he was struck by how much he related to Paul. “At a certain point I might have been Paul,” he says, “but as I continue to grow and pursue art and pursue my truth as a human, I think I morphed out of that.” Similar to Paul, who never went to college, Mazino dropped out of school, and instead went on to study at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. “Knowing, in my community where I come from, when you’re a college dropout, there’s a stigma to that,” says Mazino, who is Korean American. “So all of these things, I tried to amalgamate it into this character I was building.”

THE AUDITION

Beef centers on a quickly escalating game of revenge between two strangers, Danny and Amy (Ali Wong), who first meet during a road rage incident and then begin to interfere in each others’ lives. Their actions soon affect their families, including Amy’s husband and daughter and Danny’s brother Paul. 

When he sent in a tape for his audition, Mazino was back at home living with his parents in Maryland, and assumed he didn’t have a chance to join a cast that already included Yeun and Wong. Mazino auditioned for the series with a self-tape, and immediately assumed he didn’t have a chance, because of the caliber of the talent already attached. At the time, Mazino had returned to live with his parents in Maryland after about seven years of living in New York and traveling around the world. Much to his surprise, he got a call back and then later did chemistry reads with both Yeun and Wong. 

When Mazino was studying Stella Adler, he was asked to write down the names of actors whose career he would like to emulate. Back then, Yeun was one of the names he listed. He calls the experience of working with Yeun and Wong “surreal” and a master class in acting, especially in improv. “That gave us the freedom to just play,” he says. “I had this trust where, no matter what I threw, they could just throw it back at me tenfold.”

THE RESEARCH

Before Beef, Mazino had just finished working on a documentary with a friend of his. His friend’s younger brother had tagged along, and their dynamic immediately reminded him of what he saw between Danny and Paul. “I had a great point of reference,” he says. “Mentally, emotionally, he’s overshadowed by his brother. That was where I based my character.”

Mazino moved to Los Angeles a few weeks before filming began. At the time, he didn’t have a computer, so he would go to the gaming cafes as part of his research, both playing games and watching how the regulars would act. “It really is a form of escapism. It’s a way to just get away from everything,” he says.

He also went to a Korean nightclub, the kind that Paul would frequent. He texted creator Lee Sung Jin about what he’d observe when it came to how the young men would dress and carry themselves. “Paul would want to try to emulate this kind of streetwear, hypebeast kind of stuff, but he’s not quite getting to that point,” he says. “He’s maybe 30% of the way. Because he grew up in the church, he’s a little awkward.” Paul’s costumes began a mix of the two. For example, he may wear a gold chain and Nike Air Force 1s, but the rest of his clothes still look like he’s coming from Korean church. 

A few weeks before shooting, Lee asked Mazino to work out to get as bulked up as he could before filming, so Mazino added muscle to his fit but wiry frame. But he decided that he would hide Paul’s bigger frame for the first few episodes in the way he carried himself. “I think normally, if you go to a gym and people have that kind of physique, they’re chest is out. It’s like fuck-you energy,” he says. “But while Paul has that body, internally, he doesn’t have that confidence, for a number of reasons. So he’s still a little concave.” As the season goes on, Mazino began to have Paul walk taller as he found his own identity, like in the final scene in which he has to use his larger build to literally escape a perilous situation, leaving his brother behind.