Sterling K. Brown on ‘This Is Us’ Tears, ‘American Fiction’ Laughs and Launching a Podcast With His Wife

Sterling K. Brown made audiences cry as the obsessively responsible Randall Pearson on the hit NBC drama “This Is Us.” Randall wasn’t humorless, exactly, but he was more serious than his siblings Kate and Kevin on the show, and the drama’s most emotional moments often hinged on revealing the cracks in Randall’s tortured facade.

So it’s a joy to watch him cut loose in “American Fiction” as Cliff, a recently outed gay man who uses drugs, sex and a sharp wit to deal with grief. Though not the lead (that would be Jeffrey Wright, playing Cliff’s staid and ornery older brother, Monk Ellison), Brown steals every scene. Whether flaunting his new lover in front of Monk, frolicking in the family’s swimming pool in the middle of the night or enjoying a cocktail for breakfast, Cliff is the screw-up an audience can’t help but adore. Or, to put it in “This Is Us” terms: After years of playing Randall, Brown gets to be the Kevin of the family.

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“That’s exactly right,” Brown, 47, says with a laugh. “It was a lot of fun to be the Kevin-slash-Cliff.” Brown says it’s a role he relates to, having been the youngest of three children. “Growing up, I was the baby,” he says. “I really leaned into that in this film — into how they can be petulant or self-absorbed.”

“American Fiction” is adapted by writer-director Cord Jefferson from the 2001 novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett. Monk is a disgruntled writer who tires of seeing novels full of Black stereotypes succeed and so composes one — this time, a satire — under the pen name Stagg R. Lee. But the book becomes a bestseller, and to keep up the ruse, Monk finds himself having to pretend to be Stagg in various situations.

Cliff, though, is the raging id to Monk’s ego, a plastic surgeon whose life devolves after his wife catches him with a man and leaves him. It’s pretty tragic stuff, but Cliff’s antics are also the source of much of the film’s comedy. “I’ve only been gay for like five minutes,” he tells Monk. “I gotta make up for lost time!”

Brown isn’t new to comedy. He recently starred in the mockumentary “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.,” and he’s earned Emmy nominations for his work on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” But the actor became a household name off two back-to-back Emmy-winning roles in dramas: “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson” and “This Is Us.” Even now, nearly two  years after “This is Us” ended, there’s an almost universal reaction when he’s spotted.

“I get people all the time who come up and tell me how much I’ve made them cry,” Brown says. “And I’m thankful for it.” He pauses. “I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to respond to that, but I do now relish the opportunity to bring some mirth and merriment to their lives.” 

Jefferson knew he could draw on the goodwill audiences have toward Brown to make his other characters more endearing, particularly Monk. “You can’t err too far on the side of grumpy; you can lose the audience because they stop rooting for him,” Jefferson notes. “One of the ways you can show a lovable grump being lovable is by surrounding him with people who love him despite himself. So the key was to find actors that were a bit more joyous and inviting and show them loving Monk.”

Brown knows how silly he can be, even if others don’t see it right away. “I think I was always acutely aware that I would be seen as the heavy in an ensemble,” he says. He remembers attending NYU at the same time as Mahershala Ali. “We were recently talking about this,” he says. “When you’re the guy who’s bigger, and the Black guy, you’re always put in the role of someone with gravitas. Even if you have a sense of humor, you don’t really get to be the quirky-comedian guy.” He adds, “I had to cultivate my own sense of humor knowing that I might not get those roles immediately, but I had to be ready when I did.”

So Brown showed up on the “American Fiction” set raring to play. His first scene finds Cliff yelling at a white neighbor who’s hassling the family for spreading their mother’s ashes at the beach. In the space of seconds, Brown goes from heartbreaking grief to sputtering rage: “I will eat your sweater vest for dinner,” he says.

While Cliff is responsible for many of the film’s funniest moments, they are often borne out of grief. “Cliff is returning to the scene of the crime — a home where he never really felt appreciated for who he was,” Brown says. But he loved playing someone who is finally living his true self. “Cliff is not in the mood to hear anybody’s ideas about how he should be. He’s saying, ‘I’ve tried it by other people’s ideas for over 20 years, and now you all can kiss my collective Black ass. I’m going to do it my way.’”

The Oscar nominee will keep growing and experimenting too. In addition to starring in the upcoming sci-fi thriller “Atlas” with Jennifer Lopez, narrating the documentary “The Psalm of Howard Thurman,” about the influential philosopher and Civil Rights leader, and reuniting with “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman for an untitled Hulu series with James Marsden and Julianne Nicholson, Brown is stepping into the podcast world. He and his wife, Ryan Michelle Bathe, with whom he has two children, will soon launch “We Don’t Always Agree With Sterling & Ryan,” a 12-episode series he describes as “us talking about different topics we bandy about in our household, from religion to child-rearing to health and fitness to spirit.” Again, he’s happy to take a supporting role. “I’m really playing her sidekick, as she is a very smart woman. It’s a lot of fun.”

Which is not to say comedy doesn’t have its terrors. On the  “Saturday Night Live” episode Brown hosted in 2018, he did a spot-on imitation of the rapper Common, passionately rapping inspirational answers to Kenan Thompson’s silly “Family Feud” questions. Asked if he ever heard from the real Common after that, Brown blanches: They met on a plane when Brown was traveling with his family.

“He didn’t speak to me until we got off the plane,” Brown says. “And then he came up and said, ‘That sketch, bro. What’s up with that?’ I told him it was all love — I know he’s a good dude.” But Common told Brown he lost speaking engagements and endorsements over the skit.

“I kept telling him they were just jokes, but he was like, ‘It’s jokes to you, but it’s messing with my bottom line.’”

Brown started to freak out. “I said, ‘Common, are you serious?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m just kidding, dude.’”

Brown laughs hard. “I told him it was the worst thing he’d ever done. I was standing in front of my kids believing I ruined this man’s life.”

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