Deon Cole

Cole's early film appearances go back further than most people realize. He showed up in Barbershop (2002) and Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004) — small roles, but they put him in the room. The real pivot came in 2009 when a stand-up set on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien caught enough attention that he was brought onto the writing staff (Wikipedia). That's a genuinely unusual career move, comedian-to-writer-to-on-camera-regular, and Cole made it work in a way that most can't. He followed O'Brien to Conan (2010–present), where his on-camera bits became a signature part of the show's identity. He also wrote for Conan O'Brien at the 2013 White House Correspondents Dinner, which — for a guy who started on a dare at an open mic — is a pretty remarkable room to be writing jokes for. The acting work accelerated through the 2010s. Detective Daniel "DJ" Tanner on TBS's Angie Tribeca (2016–2018) gave him a full series regular credit, but it's Charlie on ABC's Black-ish (2014–2022) and its spinoff Grown-ish that became his signature TV role — the kind of recurring character who can walk into a scene and immediately shift the energy. Three consecutive NAACP Image Awards for that performance, 2020 through 2022, confirm it wasn't just fan affection. He also voiced Dave in DreamWorks' Netflix animated series Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and currently stars in BET+'s Average Joe. On the film side, Cole appeared in The Harder They Fall (2021) alongside Idris Elba and Regina King — the ensemble won a Gotham Award — and starred in You People (2024) opposite Jonah Hill and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. His role as Alfonso in The Color Purple (2023), the Amblin/Warner Bros. musical adaptation featuring Taraji P. Henson and Halle Bailey, is among his most prominent film credits to date (Wikipedia). Looking ahead, Cole is set to play Don King in the upcoming biopic Michael (2026) and appears in Scary Movie (2026) as Pastor Prime — two very different swings, which feels right for someone who's never really stayed in one lane.