Jeffrey Wright took home the award for best lead performance at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards for his role in American Fiction.

When Wright made his way to the stage to accept the award from presenter Colman Domingo, he expressed how thrilled he was to receive the honor from the actor. “Wow, thank you, thank you. And to receive this from you, Colman, man … it’s just a beautiful gift,” he gushed.

The American Fiction star had one of the most candid, heartfelt speeches of the night.

“It’s funny, you go to these awards shows, [and] you kind of grow tired of them and then you get one and uh … kind of changes the vibe,” he joked, met with raucous laughter.

He recalled attending the Independent Spirit Awards back in 1997, when he was up for best debut performance for his starring role in Basquiat. “The first time I was here at the Independent Spirit Awards, I had the opportunity to meet, for the first time, Muhammad Ali, who was here with his film When We Were Kings and who was an absolute hero of mine and remains so to this day. So this adds to wonderful memories of this event,” he said.

Wright then gave a blunt explanation as to why American Fiction was made as an indie film despite its all-star cast, which besides the actor includes Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown and Adam Brody. “The reason that our film was independent at the start was because nobody wanted to finance it—except for Ram Bergman and Rian Johnson,” he said referencing the movie’s T-Street executive producers.

Besides thanking his co-stars, Wright made sure to thank his “smart, scrappy crew who, one day, when we were filming on a beach, one of them raised a pirate flag above the grip truck.” He joked, “If that doesn’t tell you what independent filmmaking is, nothing will.” 

Wright beat out nine other nominees, which included Jessica Chastain (Memory), Greta Lee (Past Lives), Trace Lysette (Monica), Natalie Portman (May December), Judy Reyes (Birth/Rebirth), Franz Rogoswki (Passages), Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers), Teyana Taylor (A Thousand and One) and Teo Yoo (Past Lives). 

This marks the actor’s first Spirit Awards win after being nominated two times prior. Besides his Basquiat nomination, he was previously up for best supporting male for his role in Broken Flowers.

The 39th annual Independent Spirit Awards streamed live on Film Independent and IMDb’s YouTube channels and X (formerly known as Twitter) pages.