Movies

Courtney Bernard Vance (born March 12, 1960) is an American actor. He started his career on stage before moving to film and television. And has received various accolades, including a Tony Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as nominations for a Grammy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award.

Vance trained at the Yale School of Drama. He starred in the original productions of August Wilson's Fences in 1985, earning his first Tony Award nomination. He continued acting in the Broadway productions of John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation in 1990 and Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy in 2013, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He is known for his roles in films such as Hamburger Hill (1987), The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Preacher's Wife (1996), Cookie's Fortune (1999), Terminator Genisys (2015), and Isle of Dogs (2018).

From 2001 to 2006 he portrayed Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver in the NBC series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He also guest-starred on Picket Fences, Revenge, Scandal, and Masters of Sex. He won acclaim for his portrayal of Johnnie Cochran in the FX limited series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016) for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He appeared in the HBO film, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017), Nat Geo's limited series Genius: Aretha (2020), and the HBO series Lovecraft Country (2020) the latter earning him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

He has been married to actress Angela Bassett since 1997. He is on the Board of Directors of The Actors Center in New York City, and is an active supporter of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. In 2019, he was appointed president of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation.

Early life
Vance was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Leslie Anita (née Daniels), a librarian, and Conroy Vance, a grocery store manager and benefits administrator. He attended Detroit Country Day School and later graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree. While at Harvard, he was already working as an actor at the Boston Shakespeare Company. He subsequently earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at Yale School of Drama, where he met fellow student and future wife Angela Bassett.