Jeffrey Wright, shape-shifter supreme, sees some of himself in 'American Fiction'

Jeffrey Wright has played Jean-Michel Basquiat, Martin Luther King Jr. and Muddy Waters. He’s played Colin Powell, a Dominican drug kingpin, Batman's Commissioner Gordon and a longtime inmate nearing release. He’s played Bill Murray's neighbor, a Civil War-era former slave, James Bond's Felix Leiter, the nurse Belize in “Angels in America" and an android-human in “Westworld.”

Across an expansive array of roles both small and large for more than two decades, Wright has been among the most malleable of actors, able to transform endlessly while still maintaining a singular, rigorously grounded screen presence. Is there anyone he can't play?

“Dennis Hopper said in ‘Easy Rider,’ ‘If you name it, I’ll throw rocks at it,’” Wright says.

Shape-shifting has been Wright’s aspiration as a performer since, as a young actor, he was naturally drawn