Nicole Ari Parker

Parker has starred in a number of movies, including Blue Streak (1999), Remember the Titans (2000), Brown Sugar (2002), Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008), Black Dynamite (2009), and Almost Christmas (2016). On television, Parker played the leading role of attorney Teri Joseph (later Carter) in the Showtime drama series Soul Food (2000–04), for which she received five NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series nominations. She also starred in the short-lived UPN romantic comedy Second Time Around (2004–05) and the ABC drama Time After Time (2017). In 2017, she joined the cast of Fox's prime-time soap opera Empire playing Giselle Barker. She formerly appeared as a recurring character in Chicago P.D. as Deputy Superintendent Samantha Miller and in And Just Like That... as Lisa Todd Wexley. Parker was born in Baltimore, Maryland on October 7, 1970. She is the only child of her divorced parents, health care professional Susan Parker and dentist Donald Parker. After briefly attending a Montessori school, Parker entered Roland Park Country School, where she stayed through high school. At the age of 17, she won Best Actress in the state of Maryland's high school theater competition. She became a member of The Washington Ballet Company before earning an acting degree in 1993 from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Parker made her screen debut playing secondary role in the 1993 made-for-television movie Other Women's Children starring Melanie Mayron. Two years later she went to star in the critically acclaimed independent comedy-drama film, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love. Also that year, she starred in the Divas, a made-for-television musical drama film about female singing group. In 1997, she starred in the comedy-drama film Boogie Nights written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The following year, she appeared in the television film Exiled: A Law & Order Movie. Her other film credits include The End of Violence (1997), Spark (1998), the 1999 Sundance Film Festival winner The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (1998), 200 Cigarettes (1999), Loving Jezebel (1999), A Map of the World (1999) and Blue Streak (1999).