Delroy George Lindo is an English actor and theatre director. He has been nominated for Tony and Screen Actors Guild awards and has won a Satellite Award. Lindo has played prominent roles in four Spike Lee films: West Indian Archie in Malcolm X, Woody Carmichael in Crooklyn, Rodney Little in Clockers, and Paul in Da 5 Bloods. Lindo also played Catlett in Get Shorty, Arthur Rose in The Cider House Rules, and Detective Castlebeck in Gone in 60 Seconds. Lindo starred as Alderman Ronin Gibbons in the TV seriesThe Chicago Code, as Winter on the series Believe, and currently stars as Adrian Boseman in The Good Fight.
Early life
Delroy Lindo was born in 1952 in Lewisham, south east London, the son of Jamaican parents who had emigrated to Britain. Lindo grew up in nearby Eltham, and became interested in acting as a child when he appeared in a nativity play at school. His mother was a nurse and his father worked in various jobs. As a teenager, he and his mother moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. When he was sixteen, they moved to San Francisco. At the age of 24, Lindo started acting studies at the American Conservatory Theater, graduating in 1979.
Career
Lindo's film debut came in 1976 with the Canadian John Candy comedy Find the Lady, followed by two other roles in films, including an Army Sergeant in More American Graffiti. He stopped his film career for 10 years to concentrate on theatre acting. In 1982 he debuted on Broadway in "Master Harold"...and the Boys, directed by the play's South African author Athol Fugard. By 1988 Lindo had earned a Tony nomination for his portrayal of Herald Loomis in August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Lindo returned to film in the 1990s, acting alongside Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen in the science fiction filmSalute of the Jugger, which has become a cult classic. Although he had turned down Spike Lee for a role in Do the Right Thing, Lee cast him as Woody Carmichael in the drama Crooklyn, which brought him notice. Together with his other roles with Lee - as the West Indian Archie, a psychotic gangster, in Malcolm X, and a starring role as a neighbourhood drug dealer in Clockers - he became established in his film career. Other films in which he has starring roles are Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty, Ron Howard's Ransom and Soul of the Game, as the baseball playerSatchel Paige. In 1998 Lindo co-starred as African-American explorer Matthew Henson, in the TV filmGlory & Honor, directed by Kevin Hooks. It portrayed his nearly 20-year partnership with Commander Robert Peary in Arctic exploration and their effort to find the Geographic North Pole in 1909. He received a Satellite Award for best actor. Lindo has continued to work in television and in 2006 was seen on the short-lived NBC drama Kidnapped. Lindo had a small role in the 1995 film Congo, playing the corrupt Captain Wanta. Lindo was not credited for the role. Lindo played an angel in the comedy filmA Life Less Ordinary. He guest-starred on The Simpsons in the episode "Brawl in the Family", playing a character named Gabriel. In the British film, Wondrous Oblivion, directed by Paul Morrison, he starred as Dennis Samuels, the father of a Jamaican immigrant family in London in the 1950s; he coaches his children and the son of a neighbour Jewish family in cricket, earning their admiration in a time of strained social relations. Lindo said he made the film in honour of his parents, who had similarly moved to London in those years. In 2007, Lindo began an association with Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California, when he directed Tanya Barfield's play The Blue Door. In the autumn of 2008, Lindo revisited August Wilson's play, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, directing a production at the Berkeley Rep. In 2010, he played the role of elderly seer Bynum in David Lan's production of Joe Turner at the Young VicTheatre in London. As of 2015, Lindo was expected to play Marcus Garvey in a biopic of the black nationalist historical figure that had been in pre-production for several years.
