American Fiction & Slow Horses Win Big at USC Scripter Awards! Shocking Details Inside!

The Oscar-nominated movie “American Fiction” and the Apple TV+ show “Slow Horses” were the big winners at the 36th USC Libraries Scripter Awards, which took place this past Saturday night.

The USC Libraries Scripter Awards, which were initiated in 1988, honor adapted screenplays along with their original written works. Both the author of the original work and the screenwriter of the adapted screenplay receive these awards, signifying the importance of their collaborative efforts.

Cord Jefferson and Percival Everett, for “American Fiction,” and Mick Herron and Will Smith, for “Slow Horses,” were declared this year’s victors. The announcement was made by Howard Rodman, the selection committee chair, during a formal event held at the Doheny Memorial Library at USC.

“American Fiction,” which Cord Jefferson adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” has also earned five Oscar nominations, including best picture and adapted screenplay. The film’s lead, best actor nominee Jeffrey Wright, portrays a disgruntled academic and author who writes an exaggerated piece under a fake name to highlight what he perceives as Black clichés in mainstream culture. Katie Walsh, a critic for Tribune News Service, described the film as “a social satire that deftly dissects the culture industry’s many contradictions, with a surgeon’s precision rather than a blunt cleaver.”

Upon receiving the award, Jefferson shared with the audience, “I felt as if the book was specifically written for me. I felt a deep connection with these characters and the story at a fundamental level.” Everett is the first USC professor to be honored with a Scripter Award.

The adaptation of Herron’s 2010 novel (the first in his “Slough House” series, which now consists of eight books) by British screenwriter Smith, follows a group of sidelined MI agents trying to thwart a possible terrorist scheme. The pair won the award for a second time, this time for the “Negotiating With Tigers” episode from the third season of “Slow Horses,” which Smith adapted from Herron’s novel “Real Tigers.”