The Birth of a Nation

Nate Parker (Actor) .. Nat Turner

Born: November 18, 1979
Birthplace: Norfolk, Virginia, United States

Trivia: Was an All-American wrestler in high school and college. Worked as a computer programmer before being discovered by a talent agent when he accompanied a friend to a modeling convention in Dallas, and was persuaded to move to Los Angeles to pursue acting, even though he had no prior acting experience. Big break came in 2007 when Denzel Washington cast him in The Great Debaters, which Washington was directing. Made his screenwriting and directorial debut with The Birth of a Nation at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival; the movie sold to Fox Searchlight for $17.5 million, establishing a record price for an acquisition at Sundance. In March 2016, announced the fall opening of the Nate Parker School of Film and Drama at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas.

Armie Hammer (Actor) .. Samuel Turner

Born: August 28, 1986
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, United States

Trivia: The great-grandson of famous 20th century oil tycoon Armand Hammer, Armie Hammer Jr. seemed poised for movie stardom thanks to his poster-boy looks and his imposing, muscular, 6'5" frame. Hammer landed two of his first major roles at polar opposite ends of the dramatic spectrum: one playing the young Christian evangelical minister Billy Graham in actor-turned-director Robby Benson's chronicle of Graham's early life, Billy: The Early Years (2008), and another playing the son of Satan on the small screen fantasy adventure series Reaper. His huge breakthrough came in 2010 when David Fincher cast him as both the Winklevoss twin, the privileged duo who claim Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them. He was next seen as Clyde Tolson in Clint Eastwood's biopic J. Edgar in 2011. The next year he appeared in Mirror Mirror, and was cast opposite Johnny Depp as the title character in The Lone Ranger.

Mark Boone Junior (Actor) .. Reverend Zalthall

Born: March 17, 1955
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Trivia: Burly and heavyset character actor Mark Boone Jr. specialized in portrayals of thuggish rednecks and imposing blue-collar types, occasionally those with a slightly shady undercurrent. Boone first stepped in front of the camera in the early '80s, and grew more prolific over time; he was memorable in films such as the 1990 Die Hard 2 (as a terrorist), the 1995 Seven (as a greasy FBI agent), and the 2003 2 Fast 2 Furious (as a detective). His onscreen activity crescendoed circa 2005, with performances in four of that year's features, including Batman Begins. The following year, Boone signed for one of the key supporting roles in David Slade's supernatural horror opus 30 Days of Night (2007).

Colman Domingo (Actor) .. Hark

Born: November 28, 1969
Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Trivia: In 2005, wrote and starred in an autobiographical one-man show based on his family and life in Philadelphia entitled A Boy and His Soul, for which he won a GLAAD Media Award and Lucille Lortel Award. Performed in the world premiere of the stage production Passing Strange in 2008 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and later reprised his role in Spike Lee's film adaptation of the play. Played the role of Billy Flynn in the long-running Broadway revival of Chicago. Gave a performance lecture at University of Texas at Austin called The Intersection of Soul Music, Black Cultural Expression and Surrealism and has also spoken to students at several other academic institutions, including University of North Carolina, University of Minnesota, Temple University and University of Wisconsin. Directed the off-Broadway productions Exit Cuckoo and Single Black Female. Is an accomplished playwright, having written Up Jumped Springtime, Mission of a Saint and Redemption of a Sinner. Is on the Board of Directors of the Vineyard Theatre in New York. Is a faculty member of the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.

Aunjanue Ellis (Actor) .. Nancy Turner

Born: February 21, 1969
Birthplace: San Francisco, California, United States

Trivia: San Francisco-born actress Aunjanue Ellis graduated with a B.A. in African-American studies from Brown University before studying acting at NYU. She began her career in the mid-'90s, appearing in films like Girls Town and A Map of the World. In 2002, she gave a memorable performance as secret agent Sistah Girl in the comedy Undercover Brother, and that same year she was cast in a starring role in the series MDs. In 2005, she nabbed another starring role in a series as MSgt. Jocelyn Pierce on the Pentagon drama E-Ring, and she stayed with the show for 11 episodes. In 2008, she appeared in a starring role as an unlikely murder suspect in the thriller Cover.

Dwight Henry (Actor) .. Isaac Turner

Aja Naomi King (Actor) .. Cherry

Born: January 11, 1985
Birthplace: Walnut, California, United States

Trivia: Performed in numerous productions at Yale University's School of Drama, including A Midsummer Night's Dream, Little Shop of Horrors and Angels in America. Appeared in several short films before landing guest roles on Blue Bloods and Person of Interest. Big break came in 2012 when she was cast as a surgical intern on the CW drama Emily Owens, M.D.

Esther Scott (Actor) .. Bridget Turner

Born: April 25, 1957

Roger Guenveur Smith (Actor) .. Isaiah

Born: July 27, 1955
Birthplace: Berkeley, California, United States

Trivia: An esteemed African-American playwright and actor whose roles almost invariably contend with the politics and dynamics of race (frequent collaborator Spike Lee once famously described him as a "racial cheerleader"), thespian Roger Guenveur Smith grew up in Berkeley and debuted onscreen in the late '80s. Over the ensuing years, Smith cultivated and sustained a reputation for tackling demanding, challenging, and thought-provoking assignments with immense aplomb. He achieved much of his success thanks to repeated collaborations with Lee, who cast him as Yoda in the musical School Daze (1988) and Smiley, the hipster street philosopher in Do the Right Thing (1989); in fact, Lee later noted that Smith was the one who devised the idea for the juxtaposed photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in one of Thing's pivotal scenes. Meanwhile, Smith remained extremely active in regional theater, both by authoring his own efforts (such as a musical about Christopher Columbus that painted commonly accepted versions of the man's life story as historical revisionism) and by teaching drama to juvenile delinquents. As the years passed, Smith's onscreen activity crescendoed; he signed for plum roles in such contemporary classics as King of New York (1990), Deep Cover (1992), and Eve's Bayou (1997), and, significantly, extended his professional relationship with Lee to many additional projects. The celebrated director cast Smith in such features as Malcolm X (1992), Get on the Bus (1996), He Got Game (1998), and Summer of Sam (1999), all of which received considerable acclaim. Their actor-director working relationship culminated in the little-seen (but arguably brilliant) A Huey P. Newton Story (2001) -- a Lee-directed film of Smith's one-man stage show on the life of controversial Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton. The film preserves the original Smith-authored play, and stars the thespian as Newton; Lee augments the film with visual pyrotechnics and interpolates archival footage to give the feature depth and dimension. Unfortunately, the project failed to receive even a limited theatrical release, and premiered instead on the Black Starz cable network. Thereafter, Smith continued his theatrical work (albeit very infrequently) with such plays as the 2003 Iceland, a psychological drama about four unrelated characters that debuted in Philadelphia. He also continued his frequent film roles, with assignments including Shade (2003), God's Waiting List (2006), Confessions of a Call Girl (2006), and Ridley Scott's American Gangster (2007).

Gabrielle Union (Actor) .. Esther

Born: October 29, 1972
Birthplace: Omaha, Nebraska, United States

Trivia: Gabrielle Union had planned on attending law school, but began acting after the modeling agency she interned with as a college junior asked to represent her. She then won a series of small roles in television and film, including Love and Basketball, 10 Things I Hate About You (both 1999), and a part on the short-lived series City of Angels (2000). But her career really took off after her breakthrough portrayal of a sassy cheerleading captain from Compton in the late-summer surprise hit Bring It On (2000).It's ironic that cheerleading would be the activity that helped launch Union's star. The Omaha, NE, native was born October 29, 1973, and spent much of her youth playing sports, from soccer to basketball to track. She attended high school in Nebraska, where she was an all-star point guard, and, after graduating, moved to Los Angeles to attend school at U.C.L.A.After graduating with honors, Union chose to forego law school, stay in L.A., and concentrate on her acting career, which took off after her sparring with cheerleading rival Kirsten Dunst in Bring It On. After that film's release, Union won a substantial role in The Brothers and was slated to appear with an all-star cast in Welcome to Collinwood, as well as in Oscar-winner Stephen Gaghan's directorial debut Abandon. Her future film line up looking ever more impressive, Union took her biggest role to date as the acerbic titular character in the comedy Deliver Us from Eva, and continue to perform in films including Cradle 2 the Grave and Bad Boys II.In 2012, Union took on a supporting role in the comedy Think Like a Man, an adaptation of author and comedian Steve Harvey's self-help book of the same name.

Penelope Ann Miller (Actor) .. Elizabeth Turner

Born: January 13, 1964
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, United States

Trivia: The daughter of Mark Miller, an actor best known for his starring role on the mid-1960s TV sitcom Please Don't Eat the Daisies, actress Penelope Ann Miller was born in California and raised in Texas. After a year of attending Menlo College, Miller dropped out to train with acting coach Herbert Berghof. Her first role of note was as ditsy ingenue Daisy in the Neil Simon Broadway comedy Biloxi Blues, a role she would later recreate in the film version. For her role in Our Town she was nominated for a Tony award in 1989. In 1987, the blonde, saucer-eyed actress made her film debut in the wacked-out comedy Adventures in Babysitting, after which she costarred with popular leading men ranging from Pee-Wee Herman (Big Top Pee-Wee) to a GOlden Globe nominated performance alongside Al Pacino in Carlito's Way. Some of Miller's best known film roles have included that of Marlon Brando's enigmatic daughter in The Freshman (1990), a brief turn as silent film actress Edna Purviance in Chaplin (1992), and the svelte 1930s pulp heroine Margot Lane in The Shadow (1994). As the 1990s progressed Miller alternated ever more frequently between television and film, tempering high profile roles in The Shadow (1994) and The Relic (1997) with more intimate small screen roles in mini-series The Last Don (1997) and as the titular character in the true-life television feature The Mary Kay Letorneau Story: All American Girl (2000). If her roles in the following years weren't as high profile as in the previous decade, solid performances in Along Came a Spider (2001) and Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story (2003) eventually led to a role in the popular but shortlived Norm Macdonald sitcom A Minute with Stan Hooper. Cast as the titular character's (Macdonald) city-slicker wife, the coupled opted to eschew the city for small town life to Newhart-like effect. Her gift for comedy more obvious than ever, Miller was subsequently cast in the made for television feature National Lampoon's Thanksgiving Family Reunion (2003).

Jackie Earle Haley (Actor) .. Raymond Cobb

Born: July 14, 1961
Birthplace: Northridge, California, United States

Trivia: The career of Jackie Earle Haley should be inspirational for any former child star or out-of-work actor. In his preteen years, Haley earned his living as a TV commercial actor and voice-over artist (he voiced the son on Hanna-Barbera's animated All in the Family clone Wait Till Your Father Gets Home). At 13, Haley was cast as the juvenile delinquent with home-run power in Michael Ritchie's superb little-league comedy The Bad News Bears, earning a cult following for his portrayal of the swaggering, cool loner. He repeated the iconic role in two sequels, one of the few members of the original cast to do so. Peter Yates cast Haley, alongside future celebrities Dennis Quaid and Daniel Stern, as a member of the bike-racing team in the Oscar-winning Breaking Away (1979). Earle disappeared from screens after some fitful television work through the '80s, but stayed busy behind the camera as a writer and an accomplished director of commercials. After more than a decade off the big screen, Haley made a spectacular return in 2006, first as the menacing bodyguard/driver Sugar Boy in All the King's Men, and then with an Oscar-nominated turn as a suburban pedophile in Todd Field's Little Children. He had a small part in the 2008 Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro, and the next year he was cast as Rorschach, arguably the most psychotic member of The Watchmen. In 2010 he appeared in a memorable one-scene cameo in Shutter Island and took the iconic part of Freddy Kruger in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Two years later he was cast by Tim Burton in his big-screen version of Dark Shadows and by Steven Spielberg in the director's long-planned biopic Lincoln.

Tony Espinosa (Actor) .. Young Nat Turner

Jayson Warner Smith (Actor) .. Earl Fowler

Jason Stuart (Actor) .. Joseph Randall

Chiké Okonkwo (Actor) .. Will

Born: March 18, 1982
Birthplace: Kingston upon Thames

Katie Garfield (Actor) .. Catherine Turner

Kai Norris (Actor) .. Jasper

Chris Greene (Actor) .. Nelson

Kelvin Harrison (Actor) .. Simon

Born: July 23, 1994
Birthplace: New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Trivia: Was encouraged by his saxophonist father and vocalist mother to become a musician, but he didn't love it as much.Is a skilled musician, sings and plays piano and trumpet.Studied and recorded with the Marsalis, a famous family of jazz musicians.Before moving to L.A. to pursue acting, studied marketing and studio engineering.Initially declined to play the role of Steve Harmon in Monster (2018).

Steve Coulter (Actor) .. General Childs

Jeryl Prescott Sales (Actor) .. Janice

Justin Randell Brooke (Actor) .. Guiles Reese

Dominic Bogart (Actor) .. Hank Fowler

Justin M. Smith (Actor) .. Jethro

Allen Scott (Actor) .. Abner

Aiden Flowers (Actor) .. Young John Clarke

Dane Davenport (Actor) .. John Clarke

Born: July 03, 1982

Ryan Mulkay (Actor) .. Jesse

Danny Vinson (Actor) .. Benjamin Turner

Born: May 06, 1954

Tom Proctor (Actor) .. E.T. Brantley

Dan Cox (Actor) .. Sheriff

Chief Olaitan (Actor) .. Ezekiel

Allen Phoenix (Actor) .. Abner

Cullen Moss (Actor) .. Man

Born: August 24, 1981

Alkoya Brunson (Actor) .. Young Hark

Griffin Freeman (Actor) .. Young Samuel

William Mark McCullough (Actor) .. White Man

Birthplace: Savannah, Georgia, United States

Trivia: Took a theater class at Mercer University because he needed to take an elective class.Worked as a prosecutor in Washington, D.C.A car accident made him decide to change his career path from politics to acting.Is an skilled motorcyclist.Founder and executive producer of Fort Argyle Films.Founder and teacher at Savannah Actors Studio.

John Archer Lundgren (Actor) .. Irate citizen

Bradley Bowen (Actor) .. Militia General

Brad Schmidt (Actor) .. Lieutenant Akers

Coletrane Williams (Actor) .. Rebel Boy #1

Elijah C. Walker (Actor) .. Rebel Boy #2

Hank Stone (Actor) .. Slave Driver

Gabriela Novogratz (Actor) .. Woman

Courtney Julien (Actor) .. Rebel Slave #1

Tim McAdams (Actor) .. Rebel Slave #2

Todd Terry (Actor) .. Rebel Slave #3

Born: November 12, 1966

David Andrew Nash (Actor) .. Rebel Slave #4

Jaye Tyroff (Actor) .. Armed White #1

Scott Loeser (Actor) .. Armed White #3

Greg Sproles (Actor) .. Armed White #4

Andy Martin (Actor) .. White Townsman

Kemuel Crossty (Actor) .. Rebel Man

05:20 am - 07:22 am, Friday, November 21 on HBO Drama (West) ()