Keesha Sharp

From the Orchestra Pit to the Soundstage

Keesha Sharp didn't start out rehearsing monologues in front of the mirror. Her original training was purely musical and academic, at the Boston Conservatory. There she spent hours perfecting the cello, piano and clarinet.

But acting ultimately won out when she moved to New York to make a living in the theater. She toured the country in Broadway musicals such as Carousel and The Producers.

Music never left her completely.

In 2002, she joined the series Girlfriends for a role that was initially not expected to be significant. She played Monica Charles Brooks for eight consecutive seasons. Audiences connected with her character, and her salary began to reflect that status in American television.

And the gamble paid off.

The Comfort of Comedy and the Leap to Drama

After the end of her first major series, Sharp turned to family comedy. In 2010, she joined the cast of Are We There Yet?, produced by Ice Cube. She played Gigi for three years and 78 episodes filmed with almost no rest.

But the big change of direction came in 2016 with the series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. She brought Dale Cochran to life, and international critics started to see her as more than a sitcom actress.

That same year, she took on the role of Trish Murtaugh in the TV version of Lethal Weapon. Filming was complicated by tensions among the male leads. Sharp stayed out of the controversies and fulfilled her contract until the show was canceled in 2019.

There was no turning back.

Total Control of Production

Sharp didn't want to depend solely on her agent's calls. In 2014, she wrote and directed the short film The 636 to understand how the machinery behind the camera worked. It won several awards on the American independent film festival circuit.

From that experience, she began directing episodes of high-budget series. In 2018, she took charge of episodes of The Goldbergs and later worked on Our Kind of People. Her directing fee matched her salary as a lead actress.

In 2022, she joined the world of Power Book II: Ghost, playing Professor Harper Bonet. Her contract included a strict confidentiality clause about the character's storyline.

The actress has run her own production company with her husband, Brad Sharp, for more than two decades. In 2024, she took part in filming the fourth season of Power Book II: Ghost, working twelve-hour days on the New York set.