Daniel Sunjata

Daniel Sunjata (born Daniel Sunjata Condon,^[1] December 30, 1971) is an American actor who performs in film, television and theater. He is best known for his role as Franco Rivera in the FX television series Rescue Me. Sunjata also starred as Paul Briggs in USA Network's series Graceland.

Early life

Sunjata was born and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He is the adopted son of Bill and Catherine Condon, a police dispatcher and a civil rights worker. He is of mixed African American, Irish, and German ancestry.

Sunjata graduated from Mount Carmel High School in Chicago, where he played linebacker for two state championship football teams. He completed his undergraduate studies at Florida A&M University and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He then received a master's degree in fine arts from the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.^[2]

Career

Sunjata played the role of a sailor on shore leave on the first post-9/11 themed episode of Sex and The City. He has portrayed Langston Hughes in the film Brother to Brother and James Holt, a fashion designer in The Devil Wears Prada. He starred as firefighter Franco Rivera on the television program Rescue Me. During the summer of 2007, he also starred in the ESPN miniseries The Bronx is Burning as Reggie Jackson. He appeared as a Special Forces Operative in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

In 2003, he won a Theatre World Award for his breakout Broadway performance as a gay Major League Baseball player who comes out to the public in Take Me Out, the Tony award-winning play, which also earned him nominations for a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award.

Views on the September 11 attacks

On April 30, 2009, Sunjata announced his participation as narrator in Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup, which was the last in a series of documentaries, collectively known as Loose Change, that argue that the September 11 attacks were planned by the United States government.^[3] Sunjata has stated that he believes "absolutely, 100 percent" in this theory.^[4]

Producers of the show Rescue Me, inspired by Sunjata's views, created a subplot of the show that year (the show's fifth season) in which Sunjata's character, Franco Rivera, stirs up controversy in the firehouse when he announces these same views to a journalist.^[4]

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Theater

References

External links

• Daniel Sunjata at the Internet Movie Database
• Daniel Sunjata on Twitter
• Daniel Sunjata (Graceland) on Twitter
• Daniel Sunjata at the Internet Broadway Database
• Philly
• Variety

Audio Interviews on 9/11:

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3444675507397031384&q=daniel+sunjata+mark+dice
• http://www.radiodujour.com/people/sunjata_daniel