Born on December 7, 1965 in Washington, D.C., Jeffrey Wright is an American film, television, and stage actor and film producer.
Wright was born to a mother who worked as a customs lawyer and a father who died when he was a year old from unknown circumstances. When he was a kid, Wright was obsessed with sports – especially football – which he played in the Metropolitan Police Boys Club while attending Naylor Road School. When he was around nine, he received a so-called risk scholarship to attend St. Albans School, a private college preparatory school for boys, where he dealt with the pressures of being in a school filled with the children of the moneyed elite, while excelling at both sports and his studies. After graduating in 1983, he matriculated at Amherst College as a political science major with an eye towards becoming a lawyer. He did, however, make his first venture into acting in his senior year by doing his first play, despite having to overcome stage fright. In 1987, with his Bachelor’s degree in hand, Wright returned home to appear in several productions at the Round House Theater, Arena Theater and even local schools. Though his mother held hopes that her son would become a lawyer – she even secured him a summer job at a law firm – Wright was determined to pursue an acting career.
Wright began appearing off-Broadway in New York City and Washington, D.C., and in 1990, he appeared in his first major film as an attorney in Presumed Innocent, which starred Harrison Ford. In 1991, Wright joined John Houseman’s national touring repertory company The Acting Company with productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot. Wright continued with his stage performances and in 1994 was cast as Norman ‘Belize’ Arriaga in Tony Kushner’s award-winning play Angels in America. His portrayal of a gay nurse forced to take care of the homophobic Roy Cohn as he lay dying from AIDS won him the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
In 1996, Wright had another breakthrough performance on the big screen, portraying painter Jean-Michel Basquiat in the film Basquiat. Wright’s performance was again critically acclaimed and the movie gave him the chance to work alongside veterans such as Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, Dennis Hopper, David Bowie, and Christopher Walken. Among his most notable film roles was the Washington attorney Bennett Holiday in Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana (2005), where he was the co-lead along with George Clooney and Matt Damon. The same year he played Bill Murray’s eccentric Ethiopian neighbor Winston in Jim Jarmusch’s existential road movie, Broken Flowers. In 2005, he starred in the play This Is How It Goes, alongside Ben Stiller and Amanda Peet. He also appeared as one of the tenants in M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water.
In 2008, Wright portrayed George W. Bush’s former Secretary of State Colin Powell in Oliver Stone’s biographical film W. In addition, Wright portrays Muddy Waters in Cadillac Records, a biopic about the rise and fall of Chess Records. In 2010, Wright originated the role of the titular character, Jacques Cornet, in the world premiere run of John Guare’s A Free Man of Color at the Vivian Beaumont Theater of the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts in New York CIty.
Wright married actress Carmen Ejogo in August 2000. They have a son named Elijah and live in Brooklyn, New York. In 2004, Wright received an honorary degree from his alma mater, Amherst College.
Jeffrey Wright Photo Gallery
