Sanaa Lathan
Sanaa Lathan
Sanaa McCoy Lathan was born in New York City on September 19, 1971. She attended Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in English. Lathan contemplated a career in law, but instead enrolled at the Yale School of Drama. Following her training at Yale, she performed in a number of Shakespeare's plays and earned acclaim both off-Broadway and on the Los Angeles stage. She later found early television roles on episodes of such shows as In the House, Family Matters, NYPD Blue, and Moesha. During that same period, she was awarded Best Actress from the Los Angeles NAACP Theatrical Award Committee for her performance in To Take Arms. In 1998, Lathan starred as the mother of Wesley Snipes' title character in Blade. She followed with a role in Life and back-to-back turns in and The Wood and The Best Man for which Lathan received a NAACP Image Award nomination. She was then cast as the love interest of Omar Epps in Prince-Bythewood's Love & Basketball. Her performance in Love & Basketball earned her the 2001 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture, as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actress and a BET Award. In 2001, Lathan earned additional acclaim for her work in the multicultural comedy Catfish in Black Bean Sauce. Next was her second collaboration with Prince-Bythewood: Disappearing Acts; which was based on a novel by Terry McMillan.
