Aunjanue L. Ellis ( born February 21, 1969) is an American actress. She had roles in the films Men of Honor (2000), The Caveman's Valentine (2001), Undercover Brother (2002), Ray (2004), Freedomland (2006), The Express: The Ernie Davis Story (2008), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) and The Help (2011). In 2021, Ellis starred in the critically acclaimed film King Richard, which earned her nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, British Academy Film Award, and Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. On television, Ellis had recurring roles in the ABC police drama series High Incident (1996–1997), The Practice (1999), True Blood (2008), and The Mentalist (2010–2013), and played roles in a number of television films, such as Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009), Abducted: The Carlina White Story (2013), and The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel (2020). In 2015, Ellis played the leading role in the miniseries The Book of Negroes, based on a bestselling novel by Lawrence Hill. She received critical acclaim and a Critic's Choice Television Award nomination for Best Actress in a Movie/Miniseries. From 2015 to 2017, she starred as Miranda Shaw in the ABC thriller series Quantico, and in 2016, Ellis played Nancy Turner, Nat Turner's mother, in the period drama film The Birth of a Nation. In 2019, she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her performance in the Netflix miniseries When They See Us. Ellis later starred in the HBO drama series Lovecraft Country (2020), for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Early life Ellis was born in San Francisco, California, and raised on her grandmother's farm in Magnolia, Mississippi. She attended Tougaloo College before transferring to Brown University, where she completed her Bachelor of Arts in African-American studies. She also studied acting with Jim Barnhill and John Emigh. During her years at Brown University, Ellis made her debut in a student play. She went on to study acting in the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Career 1990s In 1995, Ellis made her professional acting debut appearing as Ariel opposite Patrick Stewart's Prospero in a Broadway revival of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. She later made her screen debut in the