Leslie Uggams makes blunt comedy work through deadpan timing and gives family drama feeling without asking for pity. We rate her most when the writing gives her more to do than deliver another rude line.
Fi1m perspective
At the Ellison house on the shore in American Fiction (2023), Leslie Uggams plays Agnes Ellison as a woman with troubles of her own. She belongs to the gentler family drama running alongside Cord Jefferson’s publishing satire. We warmed to Agnes because Uggams plays her without asking for pity. Sterling K. Brown supplies the family scenes with a more conspicuous jolt, but her quieter contribution matters. It helps make this half of the film worth watching even when Jefferson cannot quite connect it to the other.
Her career makes the broad comedy less surprising than it might first appear. The singing and variety work of the 1960s preceded wider dramatic recognition as Kizzy Reynolds in Roots (1977), followed by steady work across stage, television and film. Blind Al in Deadpool (2016) brought renewed attention, this time for profane comedy opposite Ryan Reynolds. The appeal is easy to understand: she delivers obscenities deadpan, rather than behaving as though the language itself ought to earn applause.
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) benefits from that comic partnership with Reynolds, though we are much less persuaded by the film around them. It is funny in patches and tiring in stretches, too busy making jokes about its studio to sustain the pleasure of its company. Uggams’s timing is a virtue, but there is only so much a supporting performance can do when the jokes themselves grow wearisome. We would rather see her given a character’s difficulties to play than rely on her delivery to make another profanity land.
Her Betty Pearson in Fallout (2024) places her in an ensemble whose cast earns considerable patience with a wandering plot. We recommend the series more readily than the superhero sequel, although it is American Fiction that makes us wish for more substantial dramatic parts for her. Jefferson’s film has problems joining its two stories, but the acting in the family scenes is not one of them. If Blind Al is the extent of your acquaintance, spend an evening with Agnes.
Biography
Leslie Marian Uggams is an American actress and singer. Born on 25 May 1943 in Harlem, New York City, she began her career as a child performer in the early 1950s.
Uggams gained wider recognition for her role as Kizzy Reynolds in the 1977 television miniseries Roots, for which she received Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1968 for her performance in Hallelujah, Baby!.
In later years she appeared as Leah Walker in the series Empire and reprised the role of Blind Al in the films Deadpool (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018) and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024). She played Agnes Ellison in the 2023 film American Fiction and Betty Pearson in the 2024 series Fallout.
