1. Nelsan Ellis achieved critical acclaim for his portrayal of Lafayette Reynolds in the HBO television series True Blood, for which he won a Satellite Award from the International Press Academy, among other accolades.
21 Facts About Nelsan Ellis
1. 2.
Nelsan Ellis starred as Shinwell Johnson in Elementary from 2016 to 2017, and played a variety of guest roles on television.
3.
Nelsan Ellis portrayed Eddie Sweat in the Disney sports drama Secretariat, was Martin Luther King Jr.
4.
Nelsan Ellis's final acting role was in True to the Game, which was released posthumously.
5.
Nelsan Ellis was born in Harvey, Illinois, near Chicago, the son of Jackie Nelsan Ellis and Tommie Lee Thompson.
6.
Nelsan Ellis moved back to Illinois at age 15, where he lived with his maternal aunt.
7.
Nelsan Ellis joined the United States Marine Corps at the age of 17.
8.
Nelsan Ellis earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Juilliard in 2004.
9.
Nelsan Ellis began his acting career in the early 2000s, with a role in the short film Lost.
10.
Nelsan Ellis followed this up with guest roles in Veronica Mars and Without a Trace, both in 2007.
11.
Nelsan Ellis said "you don't want to bring in someone who's going to play that in a phony way".
12.
Nelsan Ellis said that it took him a few episodes to find the character.
13.
Nelsan Ellis has said that he based many of Lafayette's mannerisms on his mother and his sister, and that the costuming helped him to get into character.
14.
In 2008, Nelsan Ellis received a Satellite Award from the International Press Academy for best supporting actor in a television series for his role as Lafayette Reynolds.
15.
Nelsan Ellis performed in several feature films; his early roles include The Express: The Ernie Davis Story and The Soloist.
16.
From 2016 to 2017, Nelsan Ellis starred as Shinwell Johnson in the TV series Elementary.
17.
Nelsan Ellis's character dies near the end of Season 5.
18.
Nelsan Ellis's final acting role was in True to the Game, which was released posthumously.
19.
Nelsan Ellis died at the age of 39 on July 8,2017, in Woodhull Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.
20.
Nelsan Ellis's family released a statement on July 10,2017, saying that he had an ongoing struggle with drug and alcohol abuse.
21.
Nelsan Ellis had been reluctant to talk to anyone about his addiction because of his sense of shame.