LaRoyce Hawkins

Hawkins was born and raised in Harvey, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago. While Hawkins was growing up he lived with his grandparents until he was 13 and he credits them with shaping his life and the lives of his siblings.\n', ' Hawkins attended Thornton High School, where he was recruited to play basketball. Influenced by his grandfather’s advice to “choose what makes you feel better”, Hawkins left the basketball team sophomore year and joined the speech team, where he became a two-time state champion in comedy speech writing and received awards twice from the Illinois High Speech Association: for “original comedy” in his junior year and for “humorous acting duet” in his senior year.\n', ' Hawkins attended Illinois State University on a full tuition scholastic scholarship where he majored in theatre arts. In first college play, he starred as Toledo from the August Wilson production Ma Rainey\'s Black Bottom. While in college, he landed his first major motion picture role in the feature film The Express: The Ernie Davis Story, the biopic of Ernie Davis, portraying Davis\'s teammate Art Baker. He is a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity.\n', '