Lakeith Stanfield Biography

Actor Lakeith Stanfield played informant Bill O’Neal in the film Judas and the Black Messiah and was nominated for an Oscar when he was just 29 years old.

Stanfield had already racked up an impressive filmography since starting out as a teenager in a short film in 2008.

After a slow start, Stanfield’s career began to take off in 2014 and 2015, with roles in Selma (directed by Ava DuVernay), Straight Outta Compton (playing Snoop Dogg), Miles Ahead (Don Cheadle‘s movie about Miles Davis) and Snowden (directed by Oliver Stone).

Since then, it’s been full steam ahead, with roles in Jordan Peele‘s Get Out (2017), the thriller The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018), the oddball comedy Sorry to Bother You (2018) and the box office hit Knives Out (2019).

Besides all those movies, Stanfield has a regular job in television, co-starring in Donald Glover‘s series Atlanta since 2018.

In Judas and the Black Messiah (2020), Stanfield played Bill O’Neal, who helped the police in a raid on the apartment of Fred Hampton, a Black Panther leader in Chicago. The film is based on real events in 1969, when Hampton was assassinated by law enforcement officers.

Stanfield’s co-star, Daniel Kaluuya (Hampton), was also nominated for an Oscar. Both actors were nominated for supporting roles.