Jeffrey Wright
Jeffrey Wright (born December 7, 1965) is an American actor. He has received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to a nomination for an Academy Award. Wright began his career in theater where he gained prominence for his role in the Broadway production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America (1993), for which he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He reprised his role in the acclaimed 2003 HBO miniseries adaptation, earning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.
This article is about the American actor. For other people, see Jeffrey Wright (disambiguation).
Jeffrey Wright
December 7, 1965
Actor
1990–present
2
His first starring film role was as Jean-Michel Basquiat in Basquiat (1996). His other notable films include Shaft (2000), Syriana (2005), Lady in the Water (2006), Cadillac Records (2008), The Ides of March (2011), and Rustin (2023). He also acted in the Wes Anderson films The French Dispatch (2021), and Asteroid City (2023), and has played Felix Leiter in the James Bond films Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), and No Time to Die (2021), Beetee Latier in The Hunger Games films, and Jim Gordon in The Batman (2022). He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in American Fiction (2023).
Wright earned acclaim for his role as Valentin Narcisse in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2013–2014) and robot programmer Bernard Lowe in the HBO series Westworld (2016–2022), the latter of which earned him three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He also played as Isaac Dixon in the video game The Last of Us Part II (2020) and the Watcher in the Marvel Studios animated series What If...? (2021–present).
Early life and education[edit]
Wright was born on December 7, 1965, in Washington, D.C.. Mother is a customs lawyer and Father died when Jeffrey was a child.[1][2] He graduated from St. Albans School and attended Amherst College, receiving a bachelor's degree in political science, planning to attend law school, but chose instead to study acting. After attending the MFA acting program at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts for two months in 1988, he left to appear in Les Blancs at Arena Stage before transferring with it to the Huntington Theatre Company and deciding to be an actor full-time.[3][4]
Personal life[edit]
Wright married actress Carmen Ejogo in August 2000. They have a son named Elijah and a daughter named Juno and lived in Brooklyn, New York City.[20][21][22][23] They have since divorced.[24]
He is a fan of the Washington Commanders.[25][26]
In 2004, Wright received an honorary degree from his alma mater Amherst College.[27]
Wright is chairman and co-founder of Taia, LLC and Taia Peace Foundation and Vice Chairman of Taia Lion Resources, Inc,[28][29] a gold-exploration company looking to create a conflict-free gold mining operation in Sierra Leone.[30][31][32]