American film and TV actress who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 2018 film If Beale Street Could Talk. She played Brenda Jenkins on the sitcom 227 and Angela Abraham in HBO's Watchmen. She also had prominent roles in A Cinderella Story, Daddy Day Care and Jerry Maguire.
She won her first acting role on the show 227 and remained on the show for five years.
Her role as Aliyah Shadeed on the ABC series American Crime earned her Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie in 2015 and 2016.
In 1997, she married Ian Alexander, with whom she'd had a son the year before. The couple divorced in 2007.
She was widely recognized for starring in the American TV comedy 227 along with Marla Gibbs.