Cynthia Addai-Robinson

Addai-Robinson was born in London; her mother is from Ghana and her father is a U.S. citizen. She moved to the U.S. when she was 4 and was raised by her mother in a suburb of Washington, D.C. She graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland and Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater. In addition, she trained at Lee Strasberg Theater Institute and in dance forms ballet, jazz and tap.[citation needed] After participating in several various Off-Broadway plays, Addai-Robinson got her first role on television in 2002 in an episode of The Education of Max Bickford. In following years, she made small appearances on television shows like Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, CSI: Miami, Numb3rs and Justice. In 2006, she was originally cast to play Melanie Barnett in the American sitcom The Game, but was replaced by Tia Mowry for unspecified reasons prior to the show's production. In 2009, she got her first recurring role on the ABC drama FlashForward as the character Debbie, a nurse. The same year she appeared in Tina Mabry's independent film Mississippi Damned as Milena. In 2011, Addai-Robinson made her big screen debut as the mother of Zoe Saldana's character (played by Amandla Stenberg) in Colombiana.