Rise to Fame
A back injury ended his college football career and pushed him into opera, then acting at USC. His first real foothold came in The Color of Money and Platoon, but Clint Eastwood's Bird (1988) changed the trajectory. He played jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker with the kind of precision that made casting directors rethink what he was, won the Cannes Best Actor award, and stopped being a supporting player overnight. The Last King of Scotland in 2006 was the full demonstration: he gained 50 pounds, learned Swahili, traveled to Uganda to meet Amin's former generals. His first Oscar nomination was his first win. Most actors spend a career chasing that.
In the Spotlight
The Godfather of Harlem has kept him on prestige TV since 2019 as Bumpy Johnson, a crime boss role that fits the weight he's built up over forty years of work. Andor brought him back into the Star Wars universe in 2025. Off-screen, he's been UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation since 2014, running an NGO with active programs in Uganda, South Sudan, and Mexico. The WPDI isn't a vanity project; it's been operating for over a decade with staff on the ground. He doesn't generate tabloid coverage, which in modern Hollywood is almost suspicious.
Side Notes
He arrived at Cal Poly Pomona on a football scholarship, blew out his back, and ended up at USC's music conservatory studying opera before landing in the drama program. That detour through classical vocal training shows up in how he occupies silence in a scene. The lazy eye isn't affectation. He has ptosis, a partial drooping of his left eyelid he's carried his whole career, and early casting directors genuinely didn't know what to do with him. The asymmetry turned out to be the whole thing. He holds a black belt in Kenpo karate, which is less surprising once you know he was planning to be a football player.