Jeffrey Wright, chameleon and King

by Kristal Brent Zook

Jeffrey Wright is the kind of actor you can't take your eyes off. It's as if the slightest motion -- a glance, a word -- might transform him into a different person. Blink and you miss the metamorphosis.

Often referred to as a chameleon for his ability to inhabit personalities so completely, Wright has gone from the smack-shooting artist in Basquiat to the scene-stealing Dominican villain in Shaft to -- hold on to your seat -- the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in HBO's Boycott, which debuts Feb. 24 (8 p.m. ET).

Set in 1955, the HBO film explores the 13-month-long protest sparked by Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of a segregated bus. While most Americans are familiar with later representations of King, Boycott highlights the young minister, appointed leader of the Montgomery (Ala.) Improvement Association at age 26.

"The hardest part about playing this role was trying to capture the unseen of King's life. So much of it had been this well-manicured public veneer," Wright, 35, says over drinks at Bar Marmont in Los Angeles. "We wanted to show what happened in private, in cars and in the deacon's room of the church."

Wright was reared an only child in Washington, D.C., where he attended a largely white private school. Still, he says, "I grew up knowing the history of our leaders, people like King, Malcolm X, Ali, Shirley Chisolm, Angela Davis." After earning a political science degree from Amherst College, he went on to New York University's film program but dropped out after two months to dive into the theater. Times were tough, but at least "the racetracks were good to me," he says. His hard work eventually paid off: He won a Tony Award in 1994 for his role as a drag-queen nurse in Angels in America.

Playing King was a good fit for Wright, who seems more comfortable discussing society's greed, for example, than his personal life. He's particularly passionate on the topic of economic inequality: "This generation is more convinced of the power of material things than the spiritual. Boycott is about discovering the legacy of King for the post-civil rights generation that has taken advantage of it but has forgotten its importance. We truly live in mediocre times."

In fact, Wright took it upon himself to embellish one of King's actual speeches with personal additions, making it one of Boycott's most memorable scenes. "Many of us have fancy cars, Cadillac cars," Wright, as King, intones to a roomful of churchgoers, registering the exact contours of call-and-response. "That's all right. But now God is calling on us to use these material things for a higher purpose."

"Yeah -- he managed to get his personal agenda into the context of the film," jokes Boycott director Clark Johnson. "I saw plenty of actors who could get up and do a pretty good impression of Martin. But Jeffrey was the one who actually got the essence of him."

Photos by: Basquat: ERIC LIEBOWITZ, MIRAMAX FILMS; Boycott: BOB GREENE, HBO; Shaft: ELI REED, PARAMOUNT PICTURES, NEWSMAKERS