Rashida Leah Jones (/rəˈʃiːdə/ rə-SHEE-də; born February 25, 1976) is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. Jones appeared as Louisa Fenn on the Fox drama series Boston Public (2000–2002), as Karen Filippelli on the NBC comedy series The Office (2006–2009; 2011), and as Ann Perkins on the NBC comedy series Parks and Recreation (2009–2015). From 2016 to 2019, Jones starred as the lead eponymous role in the TBS comedy series Angie Tribeca, and in 2020, Jones starred as Joya Barris in the Netflix series #blackAF.
Jones also appeared in the films I Love You, Man (2009), The Social Network (2010), Our Idiot Brother (2011), The Muppets (2011), Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), which she co-wrote, and Tag (2018). Jones also co-wrote the story of Toy Story 4 (2019).
She worked as a producer on the film Hot Girls Wanted (2015) and the series Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On (2017), directing the first episode of the latter. Both works explore the sex industry. In 2018, her documentary Quincy, about her father, Quincy Jones, debuted on Netflix; it won the Grammy Award for Best Music Film in 2019.
Early life and education
Jones was born in Los Angeles, California, to actress Peggy Lipton and musician/record producer Quincy Jones. She is the younger sister of actress and model Kidada Jones, and half-sister to five siblings from their father's other relationships, including Kenya Jones and Quincy Jones III. Jones's father has Tikar roots from Cameroon, and a Welsh paternal grandfather. Her mother was Ashkenazi Jewish (a descendant of Jewish emigrants from Russia and Latvia). Jones and her sister were raised in Reform Judaism by their mother; Jones attended Hebrew school, though she left at the age of ten and did not have a bat mitzvah.
Jones grew up in Los Angeles's Bel Air neighborhood. She has said of her parents' mixed-race marriage: "it was the 1970s and still not that acceptable for them to be together". In his autobiography, her father recalled how he would often find the six-year-old Jones under the covers after bedtime, reading five books at a time with a flashlight. She has said that she grew up a "straight-up nerd" and "had a computer with floppy disks and a dial-up modem before it was cool". Jones displayed musical ability from an early age and can play classical piano. Her mother told Entertainment Tonight in 1990 that Jones was "also a fabulous singer and songwriter".
Jones attended The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, where she made the National Honor Society and was voted "Most Likely To Succeed" by her classmates. Jones was involved with theater at Buckley, with tutelage from acting teacher Tim Hillman. Jones's parents divorced when she was 14 years old; her sister subsequently remained with their father, while Rashida moved with their mother to Brentwood. In 1994, Jones garnered attention with an open letter responding to scathing remarks made by rapper Tupac Shakur about her parents' interracial marriage in The Source. Shakur, who later apologized for these remarks, went on to be friends with Rashida and her family. Rashida's sister, Kidada, was dating Tupac at the time of his death.
Rashida attended Harvard University, where she lived in Currier House and Eliot House. She belonged to the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club, Harvard-Radcliffe Opportunes, Black Students Association, and the Signet Society. She was initially interested in becoming a lawyer but changed her mind after becoming disillusioned by the O. J. Simpson murder trial. She became involved in the performing arts and served as musical director for the Opportunes, an a cappella group, co-composed the score for the 149th annual Hasty Pudding Theatricals performance, and acted in several plays. In her second year at college, Jones performed in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which she said was "healing" because she had been seen by many black students as not being "black enough". She studied religion and philosophy and graduated in 1997.
