Wendell Pierce

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.

In 2016, Pierce started appearing in several albums recorded in New Orleans. He recorded a song with Delfayeo Marsalis (named "Make America Great Again"), Kermit Ruffins, in his latest album, "A Beautiful World", and Stanton Moore in With You In Mind.

On Sunday, May 15, 2016, Pierce was arrested and charged with simple battery for an alleged attack against a female Bernie Sanders supporter outside Atlanta Loews Hotel. He was booked and released on $1,000 bond from Fulton County Jail. Pierce subsequently completed a pre-trial diversion program, including counselling and community service, resulting in dismissal of the charge. Pierce has been a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton and was on the board of Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a campaign created by the Clinton Foundation.

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.

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. He appeared in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 as "J. Jenks".

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

In 2013, Fast Company named Pierce one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business."

Inspired in part by Michelle Obama's initiative to bring more supermarkets to "food deserts" – where residents lack easy access to fresh produce – Pierce, along with two partners (Troy Henry and James Hatchett), started a chain of grocery stores, Sterling Farms, in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans in 2012. Sterling Farms also has a convenience store division called "Sterling Express." The stores are named after Sterling Henry, his business partner's father who ran a pharmacy for about 40 years in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Pierce is also a theater producer, having produced the Broadway show, Clybourne Park. The show was nominated for four Tony Awards and won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2012.

Pierce attended the 2012 Democratic National Convention, was one of President Barack Obama's top campaign fundraisers in 2012, and once escorted Gwen Ifill to a White House State Dinner.

In 2009, Pierce became the host of the nationally syndicated, Peabody Award-winning radio program, Jazz at Lincoln Center, which features live recordings from Jazz at Lincoln Center's House of Swing.

Pierce was raised in the black middle-class community of Pontchartrain Park, the first African-American post-war suburb. His father, along with many black veterans, moved into the neighborhood after returning home from the war. The neighborhood was wiped out during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, including Pierce's family home, which was flooded by 14 feet of water.

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.

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

Wendell Edward Pierce (born December 8, 1963) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in HBO dramas such as Detective Bunk Moreland in The Wire and trombonist Antoine Batiste in Treme, as well as portraying James Greer in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, as high-powered attorney Robert Zane in Suits, and as Michael Davenport in Waiting to Exhale. Pierce also had roles in the films Malcolm X, Ray, and Selma. Pierce performed the lead role of Willy Loman in the 2019 production of Death of a Salesman on the West End in London at the Piccadilly Theatre.

Pierce was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, one of three sons of a teacher and a decorated World War II veteran who worked as a maintenance engineer. His father's segregated Army unit helped Marines win the Battle of Saipan in 1944. Pierce has said of his father's experience: "When the country wasn't loving my father, my father was loving his country. It's the ultimate act of patriotism."