Wendell Pierce

His father's segregated Army unit helped Marines win the Battle of Saipan in 1944.

Pierce has said of his father's experience: "'My father fought in World War II, loved this country when this country wasn't loving him back. My father fought in Saipan, came back, was awarded medals and were denied them by a white officer who said, no, not you, not your unit. There was nothing that this country was doing for him or to him that would make him love this country. And in spite of all of that, he gave us a love for country because of the values that we are aspiring to as a nation.'"Pierce was raised in the black middle-class community of Pontchartrain Park, the first African-American post-war suburb.

His father, along with many other black veterans, moved into the neighborhood after returning home from the war.

Wendell Edward Pierce (born December 8, 1963) is an American actor and businessman.

Having trained at Juilliard School, Pierce rose to prominence as a character actor portraying roles on both stage and screen.

Pierce graduated in 1981 from both Benjamin Franklin High School and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (most NOCCA students attend traditional secondary school in the mornings and the arts school in the afternoons).

In 1981, Pierce was named a Presidential Scholar of the Arts.

As a young actor, he appeared in The Winter's Tale at the Tulane Shakespeare Festival.

He produced and hosted Think About It, a youth-themed talk show, for the local NBC affiliate station, and also hosted a weekly jazz show on WYLD-FM Radio called Extensions from Congo Square.

Pierce then attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division from 1981 to 1985, graduating as a member of Group 14 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

In May 2023, Pierce received an honorary doctorate from the Juilliard School, during the 118th commencement at the Alice Tully Hall.

Pierce has been in over 30 films, appeared in nearly 50 television shows, and has performed in dozens of stage productions.

He worked on the HBO dramas The Wire and Treme.

Pierce made his Broadway debut in John Pielmeier's 1985 play The Boys of Winter, followed by Caryl Churchill's Serious Money in 1988.

Other notable film roles include Malcolm X (1992), Waiting to Exhale (1995), Ray (2004), Selma (2014), The Gift (2015) and Clemency (2019).

He first gained recognition portraying the role of Detective Bunk Moreland in the acclaimed HBO drama series The Wire from 2002 to 2008.

The neighborhood was wiped out during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, including Pierce's family home which was flooded by 14 feet of water.

As a theatrical producer, he earned a Tony Award for Best Play nomination for August Wilson's Radio Golf (2007), then winning for Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park (2012).

His other notable television roles includes the trombonist Antoine Batiste in Treme (2010–2013), James Greer in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (2018–2023), the attorney Robert Zane in Suits (2013–2019), and Clarence Thomas in Confirmation (2016).

He earned Independent Spirit Awards nominations for his film roles in Four (2012) and Burning Cane (2019), which he also served as a producer.

When first cast in The Wire, Pierce and his castmates doubted the show would be a hit: "I remember the first time we all sat around and watched the pilot. We all turned to each other and said, 'Man, I don't think this shit is going anywhere.'" In 2012, he played J. Jenks in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2.

For his role in Treme, Pierce learned to play the trombone, though he relied on "sound double" Stafford Agee of the Rebirth Brass Band.

Agee played off-camera for Pierce, syncing his trombone with Pierce's motions for authenticity.

Pierce was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his portrayal of Joe, a married and closeted gay man who steps out on his family with a young white man he met online, in Four.

The show was nominated for four Tony Awards; and won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2012.

The film was released on September 13, 2013, around the same time that The Michael J. Fox Show debuted on NBC, in which Pierce played Michael J. Fox's character's boss until the show's cancellation some five months later.

From 2015 to 2017, Pierce starred, alongside Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon, in a revival of the sitcom The Odd Couple on CBS playing the role of Teddy.

In 2015, Pierce returned to the stage to star in the Billie Holiday Theatre production of Jackie Alexander's Brothers from the Bottom in New York.

He performed the lead role of Willy Loman in the revival of Death of a Salesman on the West End in London in 2019 and on Broadway in New York in 2022, for which he earned Laurence Olivier Award and Tony Award nominations.

Pierce was born in New Orleans, one of three sons of a teacher and a decorated World War II veteran who worked as a maintenance engineer.

In 2019, Pierce starred in the acclaimed Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic Theatre in London and its successful transfer to the West End.

For this performance, he received a nomination for the Olivier Award for Best Actor.

When Mike Henry stepped down as the voice of Cleveland Brown on Family Guy in June 2020, in light of the George Floyd protests, Pierce launched a campaign to become Henry's replacement.

He lost the role to YouTube personality Arif Zahir.

Pierce has been in numerous stage productions.

He was lauded for his performance as Holt Fay in Queenie at the John F. Kennedy Center.

He has performed on Broadway in staged productions of The Piano Lesson, Serious Money, and The Boys of Winter.

He has performed off-Broadway in The Cherry Orchard (for which he was nominated for a VIV Award for Lead Actor), Waiting for Godot (which was set on a New Orleans rooftop post-Hurricane Katrina), and Broke-ology performed at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Other performances include Cymbeline (at The Public Theater), The Good Times Are Killing Me, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Tis Pity She's a Whore, and Ms. Ever's Boys performed at the ACT Theatre.

Pierce is also a theater producer and produced the Broadway show, Clybourne Park.