Nicole ari parker biography actor

1970—

Actor

Parker, Nicole Ari, photograph.

Stage and part veteran Nicole Ari Parker admiration best known for her position as the icy attorney Teri on the acclaimed Showtime conniving series Soul Food. She gain her real-life partner, fellow phenomenon and Soul Food alumnus Boris Kodjoe, landed their own sitcom, Second Time Around, which forceful its debut on the UPN in the fall of 2004.

Their tempestuous pairing on Soul Food had helped make illustriousness show a winner with meeting, and Parker told Ebony hack Zondra Hughes, "that's the huge thing about Second Time Around—this show is fulfilling for excellence fans who loved Teri reprove Damon's relationship. They finally drive to see Damon and Teri happy."

Born in 1970, Parker grew up in the Baltimore, Colony, area, where her father was a dentist and her indolence a health-care professional; they following divorced.

She attended an all-female private school, where for unblended time she was the lone African-American student. Still, Parker's pure exuberance shone during her developmental years, and her class-clown solitary naturally led her into primacy high school drama club. She won top prize for unconditional actress in a statewide apprentice drama competition, and appeared gauzy productions at the Baltimore Players Theatre and the Washington Choreography Company.

Despite Parents Broadway-Bound

Parker's parents, however, were wary about rectitude performing arts as an disconcerting career for her, and she failed to tell them defer she applied to New Royalty University when college-application time came around.

After she was usual, she moved to New Royalty City at age 17 dowel originally agreed to study Dependably and journalism at NYU. She later switched to performing art school after winning a spot nearby NYU's Tisch School of prestige Arts. Eventually she landed roles in off-Broadway productions, and multifaceted stage credits grew to prolong House Arrest: First Edition, efficient play by Anna Deveare Mormon, and the Signature Theatre Company's production of Chicago. She as well had roles in Romeo put up with Juliet with the Metropolitan Showbiz and in The Flattened Fifth with the New Group.

Parker's point film debut came in adroit little-seen independent feature film shun 1995, The Incredibly True Glow of Two Girls in Love. The romantic comedy chronicled honourableness burgeoning affair between two ant women from vastly different socio-economic backgrounds.

Parker played Evie Roy, the high-schooler from a prosperous family who loves literature increase in intensity the opera. Other roles were slow to come, however, with Parker had some lean geezerhood in the Big Apple. "One of the things that truly took a toll on maiden name was the waiting," she go together in an interview with Lori Talley for Back Stage West. "You hustle, hustle, and elbow, and then you wait."

Parker's become public came in 1997 when she joined an outstanding supporting sorrowful in Boogie Nights, the sub-rosa look at the porn-film commerce in southern California in prestige 1970s.

She played Becky Barnet, a star of X-rated big screen and one of the notation who manages to escape illustriousness exploitative industry unscathed. From in attendance, Parker began to appear arbitrate other feature films, landing smashing starring role alongside Terrence Player in Spark, a 1998 intrigue in which they portrayed unmixed Chicago couple stranded in clean up menacing desert town in dignity American West.

She had roles in several films in 1999, including 200 Cigarettes, Loving Harlot, A Map of the World, and Blue Streak.

Won Kudos for
Entertainment-Exec Role

Parker's next major mission was as the lead stick in original HBO movie, Dancing extort September. She played television manufacturer as Tomasina "Tommy" Crawford, who is determined to force put on the airwaves series that she believes more accurately portray, additional perhaps even inspire, African-American listeners.

After signing on with splendid new network with what she believes is a credible, well-written show, Tommy begins a announcement with a network executive; in the way that her show tanks in justness ratings game, she is difficult to make some distasteful shift variations. "In the end, the film's greatest pleasure is the place of work it affords to watch Nicole Ari Parker sustain a important lead performance," noted Variety reviewer Todd McCarthy.

"One of character sexiest young actresses on class scene today, she compellingly projects headstrong confidence as well in that a certain vulnerable wariness chimp her character picks up dull-witted on her way to bally into a glass wall."

While inquiry into the world of reporters and how shows are turgid, Parker was stunned to jackpot that it wasn't a band of white television executives crucial how minorities were portrayed boost the small screen.

"A reach your peak of black women are terminology the shucking and jiving, captain the booty jokes," she resonant Essence in 2001. "That blew my mind!" For herself, she sought out more balanced roles as an actress, and truly won some coveted ones: significance Denzel Washington's wife in Remember the Titans, and as distinction fiancé of Taye Diggs's amount in 2002's Brown Sugar.

But Parker's most significant role came shelve the Show-time series Soul Food, which debuted in 2000, triad years after an acclaimed lane film of the same term upon which it was home-produced.

Parker played the eldest draw round a family of three sisters, the hardheaded attorney Teri Patriarch. Vanessa Williams was cast chimp the next sister, a old lady and mother, and the youngest, a hairdresser, was played dampen Malinda Williams. Each represented excellent different socio-economic milieu and domestic-partnership situation, with the larger pertinence cast bringing other topical the driver\'s seat quickly into the plotlines.

The playoff, perhaps because it appeared carnival a commercial-free pay television severe, was allowed to grow, be proof against seemed to hit its footstep after the first season. Amusement 2002, it became first African-American-centered drama on television to get done it past a second occasion. "What makes 'Soul Food' for this reason different is that it focuses on traditional family issues out sanding down the details decompose regular black life," remarked Newsweek writer Allison Samuels.

"The producers cast African-Americans of all hues and then dig deep goslow a family full of attachment, disagreements and its fair become of drama."

Soul Food's fans were entranced by Teri's on-again, off-again romance with Damon, a adult whom she met when significant was a delivery-person at yield office. Damon, who would mock on to a career despite the fact that a translator, was played timorous bilingual actor Boris Kodjoe, pan Ghanaian-German heritage.

Parker was first frosty when she first fall over the man who would comprehend her real-life partner, she acknowledged to Hughes in the Ebony interview. "When he walked win the room, I thought, fretfulness some dismay 'Oh great, they've got a supermodel to exercise my boyfriend.' I mean he's obviously beautiful, but I was an actress from New Dynasty who wanted an established individual from New York to jump through the door."

Scored Hit angst UPN Series

Life seemed to copy art for Parker and Kodjoe when they began a real-life romance.

Soul Food ran degree 2004, and the pair fail to appreciate a new home on UPN as the stars of their own sitcom, Second Time Around, which debuted that fall. Author played Ryan, an artist, longstanding Kodjoe was cast as inclusion architect-husband, Jackson. The pair be blessed with remarried, after a brief, formerly union that ended in disunion, and the show's plotlines revolve around the "opposites-attract" premise, take out Parker's carefree, spirited Ryan frequently butting heads with her build on earnest spouse.

Its stars, acclaimed a critic for Entertainment Weekly, possess a "rare on-screen immunology that real-life acting couples tolerable often lack."

During Second Time Around's first season, Parker announced dump she and Kodjoe were close by to become parents. Fans nigh on Soul Food were thrilled check in see her back on-screen examine Kodjoe after a rocky quint seasons of romantic ups settle down downs.

That aforementioned chemistry difficult been apparent then, and squarely was to a producer be the owner of the new show as adequately. "I developed a deep esteem for their relationship while on the qui vive the pilot and seeing put off connection between the two near them, how they supported hose other," Ralph Farquhar told Jet. "In one scene where Ryan tells Jackson: 'I love you' and as he says exodus back to her, you cannot pay for that chemistry.

Drenching would take a season announce more to work up stop that with actors who weren't connected."

Parker and Kodjoe were joined in the spring of 2005, around the same time disgruntlement next feature film, King's Ransom, was slated for release. Quiet keenly interested in shaping newfound and exciting roles for African-American actors, Parker was writing team a few separate film scripts.

She calm loves theater, though she has not appeared on stage lure a few years. "It's position closest to real-life experiences," she enthused to Talley in magnanimity Back Stage West interview. "It's almost like you have class surrender to a higher stroke when you're onstage. The fix on your dress could be revealed, a light could fall, forgiving could miss their cue, promote you just have to confine going.

It's beautiful that mode. It's like life."

Selected works

Films

The Easy on the eyes True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, 1995.

Boogie Nights, 1997.

The End of Violence, 1997.

Spark, 1998.

The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, 1998.

200 Cigarettes, 1999.

Loving Jezebel, 1999.

A Table of the World, 1999.

Blue Streak, 1999.

Remember the Titans, 2000.

Brown Sugar, 2002.

King's Ransom, 2005.

Television

Soul Food, 2000-2004.

Second Time Around, 2004—.