Frankie R. Faison

Frankie Russell Faison, born June 10, 1949, in Newport News, Virginia, is an American actor whose career has spanned Broadway, film, and television for more than five decades. The son of Carmena (née Gantt) and Edgar Faison, he pursued formal training in drama at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, where he also joined Theta Chi fraternity. He subsequently earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1974. He has been married to Samantha Jupiter Faison since 2017.

Faison launched his professional acting career in 1974, the same year he completed his graduate studies, with a role in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of King Lear, which featured James Earl Jones in the title role. His Broadway career extended from 1974 through 1996 and included productions such as Getting Away With Murder, The Shadow, Of Mice and Men, and Fences. His performance in Fences, the Broadway premiere of August Wilson's play in which he again appeared alongside Jones, earned him both a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, both in 1987.

On screen, Faison made his film debut in 1980 with a small part in Permanent Vacation, and a string of supporting roles followed in the years thereafter. A significant early film credit came in 1986, when he portrayed Lt. Fisk in Manhunter, the first theatrical adaptation of Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter novels. That same year he appeared in the comedy The Money Pit and in Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive. Faison went on to play Barney, the jailer to Hannibal Lecter, in The Silence of the Lambs, the sequel Hannibal, and the prequel Red Dragon, making him the actor most frequently appearing across adaptations of Harris's Hannibal books. In 1988 he appeared alongside Eddie Murphy and James Earl Jones in Coming to America as a landlord, and the following year he took a role in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. His later film work included The Rich Man's Wife in 1996, the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the 2003 historical drama Gods and Generals, in which he played Jim Lewis, and The Cookout in 2004.

Faison's television work has been equally extensive. He appeared in the short-lived 1979 series Hot Hero Sandwich and starred in the Fox situation comedy True Colors during the 1990–1991 season, playing one half of an interracial couple opposite Stephanie Faracy and Nancy Walker. He was replaced by Cleavon Little for the program's second season. In 1998 he was a regular cast member on the science-fiction series Prey. He played Richard Evans on the daytime drama One Life to Live from 2009 through 2012, and appeared in episodes of Blue Bloods as an assistant police commissioner. Among his most prominent television roles is that of Baltimore City Police Commissioner Ervin Burrell on the HBO drama The Wire, and he also starred as Sugar Bates, a prizefighter turned tavernkeeper, on the Cinemax series Banshee. He later appeared as Henry "Pop" Hunter in the Netflix series Luke Cage.

Additional credits include a role in Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, a supporting part in John Krasinski's 2009 film Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, and an appearance in the 2016 Amazon Studios special An American Girl Story – Melody 1963: Love Has to Win. In 2017, Faison appeared in the music video for "Holding On" by The War on Drugs, taken from the band's fourth album A Deeper Understanding.