Nelsan Ellis

Nelsan Ellis is an American film and television actor and playwright. He is well known for his role as Lafayette Reynolds in the HBO series True Blood, which he played from 2008 until the series completion in 2014, and most recently for starring as Bobby Byrd in the James Brown biopic, Get On Up.

Ellis was born in Harvey, Illinois, near Chicago. When Ellis and his siblings were younger, their mother, a single parent after her divorce from her childrens father, broke down over the death of her brother. Ellis and his siblings became wards of the state as a result. They were then raised in Bessemer, Alabama, by their grandmother. In Alabama, Ellis attended Jess Lanier High School for a year, then transferred to McAdory High School. He moved back to Illinois at age 15, where he lived with his maternal aunt, and in 1997 he graduated from Thornridge High School in Dolton, Illinois.

Source: Wikipedia