Sanaa Lathan

The weight of technical training

Sanaa Lathan understands silence as a working tool. Her name means art in Swahili, and her career proves her parents chose well from day one. After graduating from Yale, she spent years refining her craft in theater before film cameras took notice of her.

Her father was a director and her mother a Broadway dancer. But she chose academic rigor to keep from being labeled just another heir to the system. In 1998 she had a brief role in Blade that introduced her features to a wide audience.

And the industry took notice.

In 1999 she took part in The Best Man and proved that films aimed at the Black middle class had a massive market. The movie grossed nine million dollars in its opening weekend on a very tight budget. Lathan brought a restraint that was uncommon in the romantic comedies of the late nineties.

Breaking into mainstream movies

The year 2000 brought a massive jump in scale with the release of Love & Basketball. Director Gina Prince-Bythewood wanted an actress who could really play ball, but Lathan had never touched a basketball in her life. She trained for months so she wouldn't need stunt doubles for the sports scenes.

Her role as Monica Wright put her name at the top of the major studios' lists. Critics praised her ability to hold close-ups without needing much dialogue. From there her projects diversified, and she got the chance to lead a science fiction blockbuster.

In 2004, she starred in AVP: Alien vs. Predator. She was the first Black woman to lead a franchise of this scale, and the worldwide box office responded with 177 million dollars. Filming in Prague was grueling because of the weather and the physical demands of the action scenes.

And it worked.

In 2006, she explored interracial romance in Something New. The film avoided moral lecturing and focused on the real chemistry between its characters. Lathan handled the timing of the comedy with a precision that recalled the actresses of classic Hollywood.

Stepping behind the camera

Her return to the stage in 2004 with A Raisin in the Sun earned her a Tony nomination. She shared the stage with Sean Combs and proved that her Yale training was still intact despite years dedicated to commercial film. Theater has always been her refuge when movie scripts lost their quality.

For a decade, she voiced Donna Tubbs in the animated series The Cleveland Show. The role kept her a steady presence in pop culture without the pressure of the red carpet. But her professional ambition was looking for new angles beyond the frame.

In 2021, she joined the cast of Succession for its third season. She played Lisa Arthur and brought a necessary coolness to an environment full of volatile characters. Her performance was dry and direct.

In 2022, she directed her first feature film titled On the Come Up. The film follows a young rapper and earned applause at the Toronto International Film Festival for its narrative rhythm. Lathan drew on everything she had learned over three decades on set to manage an independent production budget.

In 2024, she premiered The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat on Hulu.