Danielle Brooks Biography

Danielle Brooks was born in Augusta, Georgia and rased in the small town of Simpsonville in South Carolina. Her mother is a minister and her father is a deacon.

When Danielle saw a stage production of The Color Purple at age 15, it changed her life. She enrolled at a performance arts high school, then at 17 was accepted to Juilliard.

Following Juilliard, in 2013 she auditioned for and landed the role of prison inmate Tasha "Taystee" Jefferson on Orange is the New Black, one of Netflix's first hit series. She stayed with the series until it ended in 2019, but during a hiatus from the show in 2015, she played the role of Sofia in the Broadway production of the musical The Color Purple.

For her work on the show, she earned a Tony nomination and shared a Grammy award for Best Musical Theater Album with the rest of the cast and company.

In 2022, Danielle landed another regular role on a TV series with Peacemaker, starring John Cena as the action hero.

After auditioning to reprise her stage role as Sofia in a movie version of the musical The Color Purple(2023), she received a Zoom call from Oprah Winfrey, one of the film's producers, to tell her she'd landed the movie part. For her outstanding work in the film, Danielle received nominations from the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs and the Screen Actors Guild awards.

Danielle married Dennis Gelin in 2022 and they have a daughter together, named Freeya.

Filmography:

The Color Purple (2023)
Eat Wheaties! (2020)
All the Little Things We Kill (2019)
The Public's Much Ado About Nothing (2019)
Orange is the New Black (2013-2019)
The Day Shall Come (2019)
Clemency (2019)
Sadie (2018)
The Angry Birds Movie (2016)
I Dream Too Much (2015)
Time Out of Mind (2014)