Sherwin David "Wood" Harris is an American actor. He has portrayed the drug kingpinAvon Barksdale on the HBO crime drama The Wire, cocaine dealer Ace in Paid in Full and high school football player Julius Campbell in the 2000 film Remember the Titans. He is also known for playing Brooke Payne on the BET miniseries The New Edition Story in 2017. From 2016 to 2017, he played Barry Fouray on VH1 miniseries The Breaks.
While enrolled in NIU, Harris starred in his first major film role in the basketball drama Above the Rim, starring opposite Tupac Shakur, and appeared in many theatrical stage productions of various off-Broadway plays. Harris subsequently guest-starred in a variety of television and film venues before portraying legendary rock guitaristJimi Hendrix in Showtime's 2000 movie, Hendrix. Later that year, Harris received his first NAACP Image Award nomination for "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" along with the Blockbuster Movie Award nomination for "Favorite Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" for his role as Julius "Big Ju" Campbell in Remember the Titans. In 2002, he starred in the Dame Dash produced cult-classic film Paid in Full, based on the true story of three Harlem drug dealers with Harris playing the real-life kingpinAzie Faison. He starred as Avon Barksdale, loosely based on the real-life Nathan Barksdale, in the first three seasons of HBO's original seriesThe Wire, as well as one episode in the fifth season. He also produced his own debut album, Beautiful Wonderful, which was intended for release in 2005. In June 2008, director Martin Guigui revealed that Harris was cast as Nate "Sweetwater" Clifton in Sweetwater, a movie about the first black player in the NBA., it is still in pre-production. In 2009, Harris starred in the film Just Another Day, as a successful fictional rapper named A-maze. The film centers on a clash between a young up-and-coming rapper and an older one at the top of his game, the former played by Jamie Hector. In 2012, Harris narrated the ESPN 30 for 30 film Benji. In the same year he also played Harold "Mitch" Mitchell in the Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams; alongside Blair Underwood, Nicole Ari Parker, and Daphne Rubin-Vega. In 2015, he reunited with The Wirecast member Michael B. Jordan for Creed, the latest installment of the Rocky franchise, reprising the role in its sequel.
