41 Facts About Nate Parker

Nate Parker was born on November 18,1979 and is an American actor and filmmaker.

Nate Parker has appeared in Beyond the Lights, Red Tails, The Secret Life of Bees, The Great Debaters, Arbitrage, Non-Stop, Felon, and Pride.

Nate Parker was born in Norfolk, Virginia, to Carolyn Whitfield, a 17-year-old single mother.

At the age of 14, after problems at home with his stepfather, Nate Parker moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia to live with his maternal uncle, Jay Combs.

Combs, a former wrestler, encouraged Nate Parker to join the wrestling team at Princess Anne High School.

Nate Parker then attended Churchland High School and continued on their wrestling team, before moving to Great Bridge High School before attending Penn State University on a wrestling scholarship in 1999.

Nate Parker placed third in the Virginia High School League state wrestling championships as a junior while attending Churchland High School.

Nate Parker's mother moved to the Great Bridge High School district so Nate Parker could participate in its wrestling program.

Nate Parker earned a full scholarship to wrestle at Penn State University.

At Penn State, Nate Parker was nationally ranked as a freshman.

In 2002, Nate Parker placed fifth at the National Collegiate Athletic Association wrestling championships and became an All-American at Oklahoma.

Nate Parker, who was working as a computer programmer, was discovered by Los Angeles talent manager Jon Simmons while attending an event in Dallas with a model friend.

Nate Parker's title character, a modern day Romeo, was a Compton youth.

In 2007, Nate Parker played the role of Henry Lowe in the Denzel Washington-directed film The Great Debaters.

Nate Parker attended a debate boot camp to make his performance more authentic.

In 2008, Nate Parker performed in a pair of low-budget movies: Felon and Tunnel Rats.

In Felon, Nate Parker played a rookie guard dealing with inner turmoil.

Nate Parker appeared as Private Jim Lidford in Tunnel Rats, a 2008 German-Canadian war film about tunnel rat soldiers during the Vietnam War.

In 2008's The Secret Life of Bees, Nate Parker played the good-hearted love interest of Alicia Keys' character.

Nate Parker's character has to deal with the challenges of spurned love.

However, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune noted that Nate Parker's portrayal infused dimension into Chavis, whose cousin's death was the subject of the film.

Phillips noted that the role showed that with the right choices Nate Parker had the potential to be a big star in the future.

In 2012, Nate Parker appeared as a World War II squadron commander in Red Tails, a film portraying Tuskegee Airmen.

Nate Parker played a gang member named Box, whose role was not central to the film progression according to Phillips.

In 2014, Nate Parker stated he would not take roles, such as gay characters, that he considered to be "emasculating".

Club found the crises and conflicts that Nate Parker's character was involved in to be petty.

That same year, Nate Parker reunited with Prince-Blythewood, playing the male lead in her film Beyond the Lights.

Nate Parker was nominated for a 2015 Black Reel Award for Best Actor and an Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times notes that Nate Parker's talents are well-employed in his supporting role.

Nate Parker played the role of Slim in the 2015 survival film, Eden.

For over seven years, Nate Parker worked on making a film based on the life of Nat Turner.

In 2019, Nate Parker wrote, directed, and starred in the film American Skin, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August 2019.

Nate Parker directed 10 episodes of Baselines a web series about a family based in Los Angeles intent on protecting their son, Jamiel Chambers, and his basketball dreams from the dangers of inner-city American life.

Nate Parker has coached a wrestling team of 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds at Rosemead High School and has assisted in coaching wrestling at Rio Hondo College.

The Nate Parker Foundation was founded in 2015 and is based in Brooklyn, New York.

The couple has three daughters in addition to two more daughters Nate Parker had from previous relationships.

Nate Parker has said that he considers himself a Christian, and that he grew up in the church.

Nate Parker stated that the two harassed her after she pressed charges and that they hired a private investigator who showed her picture around campus, revealing her identity, which Parker and Celestin denied.

Nate Parker later filed a complaint against the university for failing to protect her from harassment, which was settled with Penn State for $17,500 in 2002.

Nate Parker was initially suspended from Penn State's wrestling team, before being reinstated in 2000 while facing trial.

Nate Parker is the author of the book Birth of a Nation: Nat Turner and the Making of a Movement in which he writes about the resistance against oppression.