Lou Diamond Phillips

Louis Diamond Phillips (born Upchurch; February 17, 1962) is a Filipino-American actor and film director.

Phillips was born February 17, 1962, at the Subic Bay Naval Station in the Philippines, the son of Lucita Umayam Aranas and Gerald Amon Upchurch (1935–1963), a Marine KC-130 crew chief.

His father was an American of Scots-Irish and Cherokee descent.

Phillips was named after the US Marine Leland "Lou" Diamond.

After his father's death, he was adopted by his stepfather and his surname was changed to Phillips.

Phillips was raised in Texas.

He graduated from Flour Bluff High School in Corpus Christi in 1980 and from the University of Texas at Arlington with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama.

The first low-budget film in which he starred was called Trespasses.

His breakthrough came when he starred as Ritchie Valens in the biographical drama film La Bamba (1987).

Phillips' big break came with the starring role in La Bamba (1987) in which he played early rocker Ritchie Valens.

Prior to his cinematic breakthrough, he starred in the Miami Vice episode "Red Tape" (March 13, 1987), portraying detective Bobby Diaz.

For Stand and Deliver (1988), Phillips was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and won an Independent Spirit Award.

Phillips' other notable films include Young Guns (1988), Young Guns II (1990), Courage Under Fire (1996), The Big Hit (1998), Brokedown Palace (1999), Che (2008), and The 33 (2015).

In the television series Longmire, he played a main character named Henry Standing Bear.

In 1988, Phillips co-starred with Edward James Olmos in the inner-city high school drama Stand and Deliver, in a role for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male.

He plays Angel David Guzman, a cholo gangster who is inspired by his math teacher, Jaime Escalante, to excel at calculus.

Working to master the subject, he develops a friendship with his teacher.

Stand and Deliver was filmed before La Bamba, but it was released a year later.

In 1988 Phillips co-starred with Emilio Estevez and Kiefer Sutherland in the Western film Young Guns, in which he plays Jose Chavez y Chavez, a historical Old West outlaw.

In 1990, he revisited the role of Jose Chavez y Chavez in Young Guns II.

In the mid-1990s, Phillips was a vocalist with the Los Angeles-based rock group The Pipefitters.

In 1993, Phillips was among the guests on the Randy Travis television special Wind in the Wire.

Phillips made his Broadway debut with the 1996 revival of The King and I, earning a Tony Award nomination for his portrayal of King Mongkut of Siam.

In 1996, Phillips made his Broadway debut as the King in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's The King and I.

Phillips won a Theatre World Award, and was nominated for both a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for his performance.

In 1998, he starred as Cisco, the counterpart of the main character Melvin Smiley (played by Mark Wahlberg) in the comedy-action film The Big Hit.

He later featured a minor role in the TV sitcom George Lopez (2002–2004) as George Lopez's half-brother.

He also played a role in the first season of the TV series 24 as secret government agent Mark DeSalvo, opposite former Young Guns star Kiefer Sutherland.

Phillips played the recurring role of FBI agent Ian Edgerton in the television series Numb3rs.

Edgerton is an FBI tracker and sniper who works as an instructor at Quantico FBI Academy when he is not working a case in the field.

Phillips won the second season of the NBC reality series, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, over pro wrestler Torrie Wilson.

Phillips currently hosts the weekly series An Officer and a Movie on The Military Channel.

This series features various theatrical World War II dramas, with discussion breaks during the film in which Phillips interviews members of the US military and intelligence communities about details of the events that inspired each film.

In 2003, he starred in a cameo role with Harrison Ford in an action-comedy film Hollywood Homicide.

On September 11, 2007, Phillips joined the touring troupe for Lerner and Loewe's Camelot in the role of King Arthur.

Phillips had a recurring role as Colonel Telford in the Stargate Universe television series during its two-season run on the SyFy channel 2009–2011.

He played the would-be commander of the Destiny expedition, who is left behind when an accident launches an unsuspecting crew into deep space.

The commander works from Earth to bring the crew home, often coming into conflict with the shipborne command characters.

In January 2012, he was one of eight celebrities participating in the Food Network reality series Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off.

He played New York City Police Lieutenant Gil Arroyo on Prodigal Son on FOX from 2019 to 2021.