Birth Name: Wesley Trent Snipes
Nickname/Stage Name: Wesley Snipes
Birth Date: July 31, 1962
Genres: Action, Sci-fi, Thriller
Occupation(s): Actor, Film Producer, Martial Artist
Years Active: 1985 till Present
Net Worth: $10 million
Latest Film: Coming 2 America
Personal life
Wesley Snipes was born in Orlando, Florida, and grew up in the Bronx, New York. He started training in martial arts at the age of 12.
In Shotokan karate, he holds a 5th-degree black belt, and in Hapkido, he holds a 2nd-degree black belt. He has also studied Capoeira under Mestre Jelon Vieira and a variety of other disciplines in the United States, including kung fu.
Snipes was married twice, the first to April Snipes (née Dubois), with whom he has a son Jelani, who appeared in Snipes’ 1990 film Mo’ Better Blues in a cameo role.
Snipes married painter Nakyung “Nikki” Park in 2003, and they have four children together and currently are still together.
Education
He went to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, as well as the State University of New York at Purchase.
He also attended Southwest College in Los Angeles, California.
Career
Snipes was discovered by an agent while competing in a competition at the age of 23. He made his Hollywood debut in Goldie Hawn’s Wildcats in 1986. Later that year, he portrayed a drug-dealing pimp on the show Miami Vice.
In New Jack City, he played drug lord Nino Brown and in the 1994 film Sugar Hill, he played a drug dealer. He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor in 1997 for his role in One Night Stand at the 54th Venice Film Festival.
Blade is his most commercially successful film. It was released in 1998 and grossed over $150 million worldwide. He played the vampire hunter based on the Marvel comics of the same name.
Snipes reprised the aforementioned role in Blade: Trinity (2004). He starred in films like The Contractor, Gallowwalkers, and Game of Death
He was set to play one of the four leads in Spike Lee’s 2008 war film Miracle at St. Anna but was forced to drop out due to tax issues, and his role was eventually filled by Derek Luke.
The actor made an appearance in The Expendables 3 in 2014. He received favorable reviews and a number of award nominations for his role as D’Urville Martin in Dolemite Is My Name (2019).
Awards
CableACE Award (1987)
Image Award (1991)
Gold Special Jury Award (1992)
Image Award (1996)
Venice Film Festival Award (1997)
Blockbuster Entertainment Award (1998)
Hollywood Walk of Fame (1998)
Black Reel Award (2019)
SLFCA Award (2019)
Quotes
“A lot of the scripts I’ve been in with other non-white actors haven’t been great. A lot of non-white actors ain’t all that great.”
“I don’t understand the mandate of being together forever. The idea that you should do that is wrong. It makes us slaves to a societal mandate. You can still love, but it doesn’t mean you have to be tethered to the flesh.”
“I read that Asian women were bedroom generals. Some people think that means they’re great in bed, but that’s not the issue. They’re talking about a place where the man is at his most vulnerable, where they have the most control. They don’t have to beat him over the head to mow the lawn. They can whisper it in his ear and give him a kiss on the cheek and it’s no problem. That’s a general.”
“Certain roles are more challenging than others, but I haven’t come across one yet that I can’t tackle.”
Trivia
Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1991.
Publicly blasted John Singleton for not casting him in the title role in Shaft (2000). Snipes claims the film would have made twice its $60 million+ earnings had he been cast.
Insisted that the role of Mimi (played by Ming-Na Wen), his character’s wife in the film One Night Stand (1997), be played by an Asian woman in order to “push the boundaries of racial-sexual taboos”. Snipes’s character, Max, is a successful Black commercial director who has an extramarital affair with an attractive blonde (Nastassja Kinski).
Father of son Jelani Asar Snipes (born 1988) with first wife, April.
Movies
Wildcats (1986)
Major League (1989)
New Jack City (1991)
Passenger 57 (1992)
Demolition Man (1993)
Money Train (1995)
Murder at 1600 (1997)
Blade (1998)
The Art of War (2000)
Blade II (2002)
Unstoppable (2004)
Blade: Trinity (2004)
The Contractor (2007)
The Art of War II: Betrayal (2008)
Game of Death (2011)
The Expendables 3 (2014)
Armed Response (2017)
Dolemite Is My Name (2019)
Cut Throat City (2020)
Coming 2 America (2021)