Wesley Snipes

 Wesley Snipes

Wesley Snipes (born July 31, 1962) is an American actor, martial artist and film producer. He may be best known for his role as the vampire hunter in the eponymous Blade trilogy films.

Wesley Snipes has starred in action-adventures, thrillers, comedies, and dramatic feature films opposite such actors as Robert De Niro and Sean Connery. In recent years, Snipes has moved behind the scenes in order to make his own films. To this end, he formed his own independent production company, Amen Ra Films, and its subsidiary Black Dot Media in 1991, to develop projects for film and television.

Wesley Snipes was arrested on December 8, 2006 at Orlando International Airport. An arrest warrant had been issued for him on October 17, 2006, in a case alleging that he filed fraudulent claims for tax refunds.[1] He pleaded not guilty and was released on $1 million bond.[2]

Snipes will return to the big screen in the U.S. with 2008's Gallowwalker.

Wesley Snipes was born in Orlando, Florida. He attended SUNY Purchase from 1978 to 1982. From then on started an acting career

 Acting career
In 1985, while working the audition circuit in New York in between installing public telephones, Snipes auditioned for a role in the Warner Bros. Pictures comedy Wildcats, starring Goldie Hawn. The distinct impression he made on the casting agent earned him a call back to fill the role in the film.

In 1987, Wesley Snipes appeared as Michael Jackson's rival gang leader in the Martin Scorsese-directed music video "Bad" (he is only seen in the long version of the video) and the feature film Streets of Gold, which brought him to the attention of director Spike Lee. He turned down a small role in Lee's Do the Right Thing for the larger part of Willie Mays Hays in Major League, beginning a succession of box-office hits for Snipes. Lee would later cast Snipes as the jazz saxophonist Shadow Handerson in Mo' Better Blues and as the lead in the interracial romance drama Jungle Fever. Another important role for Snipes was the powerful drug lord Nino Brown in New Jack City, which was written specifically for him by Barry Michael Cooper. Another film in which his character was involved in drugs was the somber movie Sugar Hill.

In 1991, Snipes formed the independent production company Amen Ra Films. It co-produced the first two Blade films and other titles that Snipes has starred in.

Wesley Snipes has featured in films as diverse as the comedy White Men Can't Jump, the critically acclaimed The Waterdance, and the action/adventure Passenger 57 (which featured his martial arts expertise), Rising Sun, The Blade Trilogy , The Art of War, Demolition Man, Sugar Hill, Drop Zone, Money Train and The Fan. In a departure from type, Snipes played a drag queen (alongside Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo) in the 1995 film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.

In 1997 he won the Best Actor Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for his performance in New Line Cinema's One Night Stand. Snipes was also lauded by critics worldwide for his performance in U.S. Marshals, a sequel of sorts to the box-office hit, The Fugitive.

1998 was especially rewarding for Snipes with the opening of the year's hit Blade, for New Line Cinema, which has grossed over $150 million worldwide. He was also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, SUNY/Purchase, for his outstanding achievements in film.

Wesley Snipes produced The Big Hit, starring Mark Wahlberg and executive produced by John Woo and Terrence Chang, and the critically acclaimed feature Down in the Delta, which marked Maya Angelou's directorial debut and garnered several awards including a Christopher Prism and nominations in multiple categories for the Acapulco Black Film Festival, as well as an NAACP Image Award for Best Motion Picture.

Additionally, television projects distinguished Snipes as a creative force with ABC's Futuresport, in which he starred with Dean Cain and Vanessa L. Williams. Snipes also produced the highest rated cable special of all time, TNT's "The First Tribute to the Martial Arts Masters of the 20th Century," which showcased some of the greatest innovators of the martial arts.

Wesley Snipe'slast film to have a US theatrical release was 2004's Blade Trinity. Although the film was a box office success, Wesley was forced[citation needed] to devote his time to making several direct-to-video films. He recently completed filming The Shooter (also know as "The Contractor") in Bulgaria and the UK, with Charles Dance, Lena Heady and Eliza Bennett.

Wesley Snipes also served as executive producer of a series of documentaries that he personally financed through now defunct Black Dot Media. The company showcased prominent thinkers from the African and Afro-Caribbean culture. The first in the series, John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk, chronicled the life of John Henrik Clarke, an authority on African and Afro-Caribbean studies. The film won critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997 and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York.