ST. LOUIS— Sterling K. Brown, a St. Louis native, has been nominated for his first Oscar for his role in American Fiction.  

“American Fiction,” is Cord Jefferson's insightful drama about a novelist, frustrated over the establishment profiting from “Black” entertainment by relying on offensive stereotypes and writes his own outlandish “Black” book based in order to appeal to a mass audience.

Brown is up for Best Supporting Actor for playing the novelist's brother.

He took to Instagram this morning to express his gratitude for the nomination and explained he fell asleep in his kid’s room and woke up to a dead phone. Once he charged it, he discovered he had 126 text messages offering congratulations. 

He then realized, “I got nominated for an Oscar. It’s crazy.“

Brown explained that when he got nominated for a SAG Award recently, his son said, “until you get an Oscar, he’s like just keep it down a little bit. Then I showed him who got nominated this morning, and you could see his little 12-year-old mind trying to figure out how to keep your boy down, but then he just said congratulations.”

He also mentioned he didn’t think the role would lead to a nomination, saying he believed it was too small of a part. He thanked his manager and publicist for encouraging him to promote the movie and “seeing something I did not even think was a possibility. I was just happy to do the work.”

He has nine Emmy nominations and three wins, including Outstanding lead Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Randall Pearson in “This is Us” in 2017. He also received an Emmy for “the People v. OJ Simpson” in 2016 and took home an Emmy in 2021 for Outstanding Narrator for his part in “Lincoln: Divided We Stand.“

Brown has also won a Golden Globe for This is Us and several SAG awards for the NBC hit as well as “Black Panther.”

The 47-year-old actor was born in Olivette and in an interview for Explore St. Louis, he said his four brothers and sisters live here, along with his aunts and most of his cousins.