Sterling K. Brown

Sterling Kelby Brown (born April 5, 1976) is an American actor. He made his breakthrough in 2016 for portraying prosecutor Christopher Darden in the first season of the FX anthology series American Crime Story, subtitled The People v. O. J. Simpson, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. In the same year he began starring as Randall Pearson in the NBC drama series This Is Us, a role which earned Brown his second Emmy in 2017 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series as well as his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and his first Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

Early life and education
Brown was born in 1976 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Sterling Brown and Aralean Banks Brown. Brown is one of five children; he has two sisters and two brothers. His father died when Brown was 10 years old. As a child, he went by the name Kelby; when he turned 16 he adopted the name Sterling, explaining in 2016, "I went by Kelby. My mom tells me this story – she was reiterating it the other day – in kindergarten I came home one day and said, 'Mom, Sterling is eight letters and Kelby is five. I'll just do Kelby and then when I turn 16, I will go by Sterling.' And I don't remember that. The impetus for me is that he had been gone for some time, and I was like, 'Kelby was a little boy's name.' I felt like I was ready to become Sterling."

Brown grew up in Olivette, Missouri and attended Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School.

Brown graduated from Stanford University in 1998 with an acting degree. He initially wanted to major in economics so he could work in business, but he fell in love with acting as a college freshman. Brown then attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Career
After graduation from college, Brown performed in a series of roles in regional theater. Brown has also since appeared in numerous television shows including ER, NYPD Blue, JAG, Boston Legal, Alias, Without A Trace, Supernatural, and Third Watch. Brown was a regular in the comedy Starved, and he has also appeared in movies, including Stay with Ewan McGregor, Brown Sugar with Taye Diggs, and Trust the Man with David Duchovny and Julianne Moore.

Brown played a recurring character on the television series [Supernatural], where he portrayed vampire hunter Gordon Walker. Brown played Dr. Roland Burton on Army Wives. He portrayed Detective Cal Beecher on Person of Interest, also appearing on the show Medium. In 2008, he played David Mosley on the "Patience" episode of Eli Stone. In 2016, Brown starred in the FX miniseries The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story as Christopher Darden, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards.

In the theater, Brown was cast in the 2002 production of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui starring Al Pacino, Paul Giamatti, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman and Jacqueline McKenzie. In 2014, he starred as Hero in Suzan-Lori Parks' Odyssey-inspired play Father Comes Home From the Wars at New York's Public Theater. Brown also starred in the 2014 movie The Suspect with Mekhi Phifer. Since 2016, Brown has starred in the television series This Is Us. In 2018, he became the first African-American actor to win a Golden Globe in the best actor in a television drama category, which he won for This Is Us. That same year he also became the first African-American actor to win a Screen Actors Guild Award in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series category, also for This Is Us and appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Panther as N'Jobu. He also was part of that year's Screen Actors Guild Award win for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, again for This Is Us.

In June 2018, he gave the commencement address at Stanford University.

Personal life
In June 2007, he married actress Ryan Michelle Bathe, whom he met as a college freshman at Stanford. They have two sons.