Nicole Beharie is an American actress. She is best known for her starring roles in films such as the drama ''

American Violet ''American Violet'' is a 2008 American drama film directed by Tim Disney and starring Nicole Beharie. The story is based on Regina Kelly, a victim of Texas police drug enforcement tactics. Plot Set in the midst of the 2000 presidential election, ...

'' (2008), the psychological drama ''

Shame Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness. Definition Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, d ...

'' (2011), the biographical sports drama '' 42'' (2013), and the independent drama ''

Miss Juneteenth ''Miss Juneteenth'' is a 2020 American drama film written and directed by Channing Godfrey Peoples and starring Nicole Beharie, Kendrick Sampson, and Alexis Chikaeze. The plot follows a single mom and former teen beauty queen who enters her daug ...

'' (2020). From 2013 to 2016, she starred in the

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

supernatural drama series '' Sleepy Hollow''.

Early life

Beharie was born in

West Palm Beach, Florida West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is located immediately to the west of the adjacent Palm Beach, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lagoon. The populati ...

. When Beharie was little, her father was in the

United States Foreign Service The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carryi ...

, so she grew up in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Nigeria and Panama. She attended Orangeburg Wilkinson High School in

Orangeburg, South Carolina Orangeburg, also known as ''The Garden City'', is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The population of the city was 13,964 according to the 2010 United States Census and declined to 12 ...

, and is a 2003 graduate of the

South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities The South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities (SCGSAH) is a prestigious boarding school for the arts located in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. Founded in 1999 by Virginia Uldrick, the high school program provides pre-pr ...

, a public residential high school in Greenville. Beharie was then accepted into

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...

, one of the most prestigious performing arts conservatories in the United States (Drama division ''Group 36'': 2003–07). She was awarded a Shakespeare scholarship and trained in England.

Career

Beharie made her feature film debut in the

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

film ''

'', where she played the leading role. Also in the same year she played Sarah Ward in the American

sports film A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme. It is a production in which a sport, sporting event, athlete (and their sport), or follower of sport (and the spor ...

'' The Express: The Ernie Davis Story'' opposite actor Rob Brown. In the Lifetime movie, ''Sins of the Mother'' (2010), Beharie portrayed Shay Hunter, a struggling university student who goes on a journey to mend her fractured relationship with her mother Nona played by Jill Scott. In

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

, Beharie performed five original songs as a singer-songwriter opposite German actor

Ken Duken Ken Duken (born 17 April 1979) is a German actor and director. Early life Ken Duken is the third child of film and stage actress Christina Loeb; his father is a doctor. Duken never attended a drama school but took courses in drama, including un ...

in the romantic drama ''

My Last Day Without You ''My Last Day Without You'' is an independent feature film starring Nicole Beharie and Ken Duken, and directed by Stefan Schaefer. It was written by Schaefer and Christoph Silber, and produced by Diane Crespo, Silber and Schaefer and their compan ...

''. In the Russell Leigh Sharman film adaptation of his play ''Apartment 4E'', she played Piper, a troubled young woman who never leaves her apartment. Beharie played Marianne in the

Steve McQueen Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1 ...

film ''

'', portraying a love interest of

Michael Fassbender Michael Fassbender (born 2 April 1977) is an Irish actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, and nominations for two Academy Awards, four British Academy Film Award ...

Wesley Morris Wesley Morris (born 1975) is an American film critic and podcast host. He is currently critic-at-large for ''The New York Times'', as well as co-host, with Jenna Wortham, of the ''New York Times'' podcast '' Still Processing.'' Previously, Morr ...

of ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' praised her performance, calling her "a marvel of natural transparency". In 2013, Beharie starred as

Rachel Robinson Rachel Annetta Robinson (née Isum; born July 19, 1922) is the widow of professional baseball player Jackie Robinson, as well as an American former professor and registered nurse. Life and work Rachel Isum was born in Pasadena, California, a ...

, wife of

Jackie Robinson Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line ...

(played by

Chadwick Boseman Chadwick Aaron Boseman (; November 29, 1976August 28, 2020) was an American actor. During his two-decade career, Boseman received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award, ...

), in the historical baseball feature ''42''. The same year, she began portraying Abbie Mills on the

fantasy series '' Sleepy Hollow'', which is based on the 1820 short story "

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a gothic story by American author Washington Irving, contained in his collection of 34 essays and short stories titled ''The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.'' Written while Irving was living abroad in Birm ...

" by

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...

. In Spring 2016, Beharie departed the series, with her character dying in the series' third-season finale, the episode entitled "Ragnarok", which was aired April 8, 2016. She later stated that an

autoimmune disease An autoimmune disease is a condition arising from an abnormal immune response to a functioning body part. At least 80 types of autoimmune diseases have been identified, with some evidence suggesting that there may be more than 100 types. Nearly a ...

was one of the causes of her exit and also revealed that she struggled to find work and was labelled as problematic after her departure from the show. In 2020, she starred in ''

'', a film about a former pageant winner preparing her teenage daughter to assume her former crown.

Personal life

In 2015, Beharie posed for the May issue of Allure magazine.The Naked Truth: Celebrities Go Nude for Allure
Allure. Archived on April 15, 2015.

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre

Soundtrack appearances

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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Nicole Beharie
on Instagram {{DEFAULTSORT:Beharie, Nicole 21st-century American actresses Actresses from Florida American film actresses American stage actresses Juilliard School alumni American people of Jamaican descent Living people People from West Palm Beach, Florida African-American actresses Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School alumni 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women Year of birth missing (living people)