Jeffrey Wright Tells Onscreen Mom Leslie Uggams: 'I've Had a Crush on You Since the First Day I Saw You'

Accepting an award for leading ‘American Fiction,’ Jeffrey Wright admitted to crushing on the actress playing his mother in the film

Jeffrey Wright is crushing on costar Leslie Uggams — while receiving an award from her.

The Emmy-winning actor accepted the Palm Spring International Film Festival’s Career Achievement Award from Uggams, the actress playing his mother in the hit film American Fiction, on Thursday.

“I've had a crush on you since the first day I saw you, mother,” Wright, 58, said onstage at the awards gala. “Who did not?”

The legendary Uggams, 80, got her start on variety programs like The Lawrence Welk Show, Name That Tune and the Ed Sullivan Show before dominating stage and screen, winning a Tony Award in 1968 and Daytime Emmy in 1983.

Wright had admitted to Metro in December and in a W Magazine interview published Wednesday that Uggams had been one of his childhood crushes. “I told her about it on her last day of filming [American Fiction],” he told the latter outlet.

Onstage in Palm Springs introducing Wright, Uggams acknowledged his admission to the crowd. “Maybe she still has a crush on me,” she joked amid applause. “I may be old, but I ain’t dead.”

Related: American Fiction: The Biggest Changes Between the Book Erasure and New Movie Starring Jeffrey Wright

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“I was asked to write some remarks tonight, but what I was not told was that Leslie Uggams was going to present me this award,” Wright began his acceptance speech.

“There was an actor named Bert Williams in 1916 who [did] a film called A Natural Born Gambler,” the Westworld star continued. “He was a Black man playing in Blackface. That's not to be feared, that's the history. That's not the history of Black folks, that's American history.

“That's where the beginning of representation on film begins for someone like me and for many of us in this room. But we now have a new type of freedom, agency and power from the time of Bert Williams — because of people like Leslie Uggams.”

Wright concluded his off-the-cuff remarks: “Without Leslie Uggams, I do not stand here. She has won my freedom for me and I am grateful to Leslie.”

Related: American Fiction PEOPLE Review: Jeffrey Wright Is Brilliant in Hot-Button Comedy About a Black Novelist

In American Fiction, directed and adapted by Cord Jefferson from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, Wright plays frustrated professor Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, who pseudonymously pens an outlandish novel full of Black stereotypes to spite the publishing industry — only for it to become a hit. Uggams plays his mother Agnes Ellison.

Of his Career Achievement Award, Wright joked about winning the honor “at such a young age, having just started last Tuesday. But I am seriously grateful to be included among the number of distinguished artists who have received this prior to me and also among my fellow honorees tonight, who, as you've seen, are just magnificent."

Honorees at Thursday's awards included the cast of Killers of the Flower Moon and its director Martin Scorsese, Barbie's Greta Gerwig and stars of the movie's soundtrack Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, plus Maestro's Carey Mulligan and The Holdovers' Paul Giamatti and Da'Vine Joy Randolph.

Related: Former Living Single Star Erika Alexander Is Emotional Over 'Wonderful' Awards Talk Around American Fiction (Exclusive)

Wright also shouted out the “tireless wonderful crew” of American Fiction and “brilliant castmates Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K. Brown, Issa Rae, John Ortiz, Myra Lucretia Taylor and, of course, the one and only Leslie Uggams.”

To his writer-director, Wright acknowledged that the role of Monk had been created for him. “Thank you, Cord, for embracing the madness of writing this script with me in mind. And I love you, brother, and I'll pay for the therapist session for your having my voice in your head.”

He added, “I appreciate not only you giving me this role, but also moreover giving me the opportunity for much needed self-reflection.”

American Fiction is in theaters now.

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