Nicole Ari Parker

Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland, actress Nicole Ari Parker is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Parker is best known for her role as attorney Teri Joseph on the Showtime television drama Soul Food, starring in the comedy Brown Sugar with Queen Latifah, Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs and her role as Becky Barnett in the film Boogie Nights, co-starring Don Cheadle and Mark Wahlberg. In 2005, Parker married her onscreen love interest on Soul Food, actor Boris Kodjoe. The couple later starred together on the UPN situation comedy Second Time Around, which lasted only one season. In 2009, she also appeared in the comedic satire Black Dynamite as Mohagany Black alongside Michael Jai White and Sally Richardson. In 2012, Parker appeared in the all-Black Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire with Blair Underwood.