Nate Parker Biography

Nate Parker wrote, directed and starred in the 2016 film about Nat Turner‘s slave rebellion, The Birth of a Nation.

A 2003 graduate of the University of Oklahoma, he had a career in computer programming before heading to Los Angeles to pursue acting. He had a significant role in the Denzel Washington movie The Great Debaters (2007), but gained more notice as Alicia Keys‘s love interest in The Secret Life of Bees (2008). Around the same time, Parker began working on a film about Nat Turner, a project that took eight years to realize. In 2016 The Birth of a Nation set a Sundance Film Festival record, with a $17.5 million distribution deal with Fox Searchlight.

Parker’s other films include Red Tails (2012, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr.), Arbitrage (2012, starring Richard Gere), and Non-Stop (2014, starring Liam Neeson).