The man who
lived Moonlight is now living the life of an Oscar winner.
Tarell Alvin
McCraney co-wrote Best Picture winner Moonlight and shared the Academy Award
for Best Adapted Screenplay with the film’s director Barry Jenkins.
But the 36 year
old has had little time to bask in the Oscar glow.
The openly gay
McCraney is the new chair of playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and his
duties there had him traveling back to the East Coast soon after Oscar night.
‘It’s been very
hectic and busy,’ McCraney tells Gay Star News.
‘I had to get
right back on the plane. I’ve been recruiting and doing interviews. I had
applications to read. It really is important to me to make sure that my
students know that I’m there for them. Their work is so important to the future
of what we do. We just finished our interviewing process and we just invited
our next students to be in class next year.’
Because he has
been so focused, McCraney has even put away the shiny, golden Oscar and other
awards including the Independent Spirit Award and the Writers Guild of America
prize.
‘I can’t have
it out,’ he says. ‘It’s beautiful. The awards are all in a nice beautiful
cabinet where I can look at them when I need to.’
The inspiration
for Moonlight
McCraney’s play
In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue was one of three work samples that years ago
he himself used to gain admittance into Yale School of Drama.
A high school
classmate of McCraney’s found the play more than a decade later and thought it
would be ideal for Jenkins to make as his second feature.
Jenkins took
the play with him on a writing trip to Brussels, Belgium, and within 10 days
had come up with the first draft of a screenplay.
The result was
the acclaimed film that tells the story of Chiron during three different stages
in his life.
Played by three
different actors, he goes from bullied effeminate child to young gay man coming
to terms with his sexuality.
A night of
firsts
Because he dove
right back into his work at Yale, McCraney is ‘still trying to process’ all
that happened at the Academy Awards which took place at The Dolby Theatre in
Hollywood on 26 February.
‘We were a lot
of firsts that night – first African-American director (Jenkins) with an all
black cast to win an Academy Award for best picture.
‘To win three
Oscars that night, it is sort of staggeringly beautiful. I know I’m still
processing it.’
In addition to
Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay, Mahershala Ali won for Best Performance by
an Actor in a Supporting Role.
The Best
Picture win was also historic for an unfortunate reason: presenters Faye
Dunaway and Warren Beatty were handed the wrong envelope as they took the stage
which led to La La Land being announced as the winner by mistake.
The Moonlight
team took to the stage after La La Land producers made their speeches and it
was announced there had been an error.
‘That moment
(of winning) is something that so few people actually get to experience that no
one has been able to tell me what the other way is like so this is the only way
I know it – it’s the only way I know that the film that was inspired by my work
won Best Picture.
‘That’s the
feeling that I have and I’m grateful for it.’
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