Don Cheadle

Don Cheadle was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Actor for his performance as real-life Rwandan hero Paul Rusesabagina in Terry George's award-winning Hotel Rwanda. He also earned Golden Globe, Critics' Choice, NAACP Image, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for the portrayal.

He next starred in and produced Paul Haggis' independent feature Crash, which won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, among a host of honors. Earlier this year, he received the Male Star of the Year award at NATO's ShoWest convention.

In 1995, Mr. Cheadle was named Best Supporting Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, for his breakout film performance opposite Denzel Washington in Carl Franklin's Devil in a Blue Dress. The latter also earned him his first NAACP Image Award nomination; his subsequent ones have included nods for his portrayals in John Singleton's Rosewood and Warren Beatty's Bulworth.

He has collaborated multiple times with directors Steven Soderbergh and Brett Ratner; for the former, he starred in the multi-Academy Award-winning Traffic, the acclaimed Out of Sight, and the trio of Ocean's movies (numbering Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen). For the latter, he starred in After the Sunset, Rush Hour 2, and The Family Man.

Among Mr. Cheadle's other features are Mike Binder's Reign over Me; Niels Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon; Jordan Melamed's Manic; Dominic Sena's Swordfish; Allison Anders' Things Behind the Sun (for which he earned both Emmy and Independent Spirit Award nominations); Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars; Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights; Mick Jackson's Volcano; Robert Townsend's The Meteor Man; Dennis Hopper's Colors; and John Irvin's Hamburger Hill.

The Kansas City native received his Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from the prestigious Cal Arts in Valencia, California. While attending Cal Arts, he auditioned for film and television roles, and landed a recurring role on the hit syndicated series Fame. His subsequent television series credits included a recurring role on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and a two-year stint on Picket Fences.

Mr. Cheadle has starred in several notable telefilms. These include Eriq La Salle's Rebound: The Legend of Earl "The Goat" Manigault; Joseph Sargent's A Lesson Before Dying (for which he earned an Emmy Award nomination); Stephen Frears' live broadcast of Fail Safe; and Rob Cohen's The Rat Pack. For the latter, in which he portrayed legendary entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., Mr. Cheadle won a Golden Globe Award and was an Emmy Award nominee.

His stage work includes originating the role of Booth in Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning play Top Dog/Underdog at New York's Public Theater under the direction of George C. Wolfe. His other stage credits include Leon, Lena and Lenz, at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis; The Grapes of Wrath and Liquid Skin, at the Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis; Cymbeline, at The New York Shakespeare Festival; 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore, at Chicago's Goodman Theater; and Blood Knot, at Hollywood's Complex Theater. Mr. Cheadle has also directed West Coast stage productions of Groomed, Cincinnati Man, The Trip, and Three, True, One, among other plays.

Mr. Cheadle is also a writer, singer and musician. He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2004 for Best Spoken Word Album, for his narration/dramatization of the Walter Mosley novel Fear Itself.

With human rights activist John Prendergast, he has co-authored a new book, Not on Our Watch, due out in May 2007. The nonfiction book contains the first-person accounts of extraordinary individuals among us who have mobilized others with an effective unified response to the atrocities in the Darfur region, and offers practical strategies for taking further action.

In an effort to further raise awareness about the latter, as producer, Mr. Cheadle is currently in post-production on a documentary about the Sudan.