Occupation: Actor
Active: 2000s
Major Genres: Drama, Comedy Drama
Career Highlights: Captivity, Flip the Script, Issues
First Major Screen Credit: Issues (2004)
Biography
A few years after the turn of the millennium, African American supporting actor Laz Alonso began paying his dues as a Hollywood ascendant, with small appearances in schlocky, B-grade Hollywood features such as the ghetto slasher movie Leprechaun in the Hood (2003) and the sex comedy Hittin' It (2004). Alonso later enlisted in the casts of more respectable features, beginning around 2005, when he played a military private, Escobar, in Sam Mendes's tertiary feature, the Gulf War drama Jarhead, and a morgue security guard in the lucrative occultic actioner Constantine. In 2007, audiences could catch Alonso in two small roles: that of Zeke in the teen dance picture Stomp the Yard, and a small supporting turn in the creepy Roland Joffé-directed Captivity, a kind of Tattoo-Silence of the Lambs hybrid about the kidnapping and torture of a fashion model (Elisha Cuthbert). Meanwhile, Alonso signed on to work with Titanic guru James Cameron, on the helmer's elephantine sci-fi opus Avatar (2009). ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide