Chad L. Coleman

Chad L. Coleman is an American actor born on September 6, 1967, in Richmond, Virginia. After being removed from his parents' care in the Creighton Court public housing project, he was placed in foster care before being raised by his grandmother on Richmond's south side. As a young man, Coleman competed in track and field until a leg injury redirected his focus toward drama. He enrolled at Virginia Commonwealth University on a scholarship but left after his freshman year to enlist in the U.S. Army, where he served from 1985 to 1989 as a video cameraman.

Coleman's stage work includes appearances in The Exonerated and a 2009 Broadway revival of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, the latter earning him a Theatre World Award that year. His theatrical work established him as a presence in serious dramatic material before his screen career expanded significantly.

On television, Coleman became widely recognized for his portrayal of Dennis "Cutty" Wise, a reformed criminal, on the HBO series The Wire, a role he held from 2004 to 2008. In 2002, he had starred as O. J. Simpson in the TNT television movie Monday Night Mayhem. He later took on the recurring role of Tyreese on AMC's The Walking Dead beginning in late 2012, was elevated to series regular for the fourth season, and remained in that capacity through the fifth season until his character's death in the mid-season premiere in early 2015. Coleman also voiced the character Coach in the 2009 video game Left 4 Dead 2 and appeared in a starring role in the Norwegian television series Buzz Aldrin, What Happened To You In All The Confusion?, which aired in Europe in November 2011.

His television work continued with a range of recurring and guest roles. He appeared in five episodes of the FX sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia between 2010 and 2019 as a character named Z, played Gary Miller in the Fox sitcom I Hate My Teenage Daughter beginning in 2011, and guest starred in episodes of In Plain Sight and Lie to Me. In 2016, Coleman portrayed Mingo in the History Channel's reimagining of Roots, playing a slave and cock trainer for Tom Lea who develops a father-son bond with Chicken George, and also appeared as Tobias Church on Arrow that same year. He was announced in November 2014 to play Fred Johnson, known as the Butcher of Anderson Station, a former Marine entangled in a conflict between Earth and Mars, on the science-fiction series The Expanse, a role he held from 2015 to 2020. Coleman played the recurring role of Klyden, mate to Second Officer Bortus, on The Orville from 2017 to 2022, recurred as Corey James in the first two seasons of All American beginning in 2019, and portrayed Bruno Mannheim in Superman & Lois from 2023 to 2024.

Beyond acting, Coleman serves as executive producer and provided visual inspiration for the character Mr. Osi in the futuristic graphic novel series Treadwater. In 2015, he collaborated with the non-profit organization Living Advantage on a public service announcement promoting foster care as a complement to adoption, a cause connected to his own experience in the foster system. Coleman was married to Sally Stewart from 1999 to 2010.