Mekhi Phifer

Mekhi Phifer

Birth : 1974-12-29, Harlem, New York City, New York, USA

History

Mekhi Thira Phifer (born December 29, 1974) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his multi-year role as Dr. Greg Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER and his co-starring role opposite Eminem in the feature film 8 Mile. He was a regular on the Fox crime show Lie to Me portraying the role of Ben Reynolds, before season 3. He was born in in Harlem, New York City, the son of Rhoda Phifer, a high school teacher; he grew up in a single-parent household with his mother. His acting career began in 1995, when Phifer attended an open casting call for director Spike Lee’s Clockers, beating over a thousand others to get the lead role as a narcotics dealer embroiled in a murder cover-up. He followed that role with another in the comedy spoof feature High School High (which also starred his former wife Malinda Williams) and continued by co-starring in the fright flick I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze, Jr. Among Phifer’s other big-screen credits are Soul Food, The Biography of Spud Webb, Hell’s Kitchen, NYC, Tears of a Clown, O (as the titular character Odin a.k.a. O), and the thriller Uninvited Guest (as Silk). He appeared in Impostor as well as Paid in Full, 8 Mile, opposite Eminem and Dawn of the Dead. Phifer has a son, Omikaye, with his ex-wife, actress Malinda Williams. His second son, Mekhi Thira Phifer Jr., was born to his girlfriend Oni Souratha in Los Angeles on October 30, 2007.

Profile

Mekhi Phifer
Mekhi Phifer

Movies

Lights Out
Max Bomer
A drifting ex-soldier turns underground fighter with the help of a just-released ex-con, pitting him against corrupt cops and hired killers now gunning for him and all those he cares about.
Obsession
Sonny
Before meeting George Good, Sonny Jordan was just a lost drifter with a troubled past floating from town to town, looking for work. As fate would have it, Sonny ends up saving George's life from a murderous back-alley mugger. As thanks, George gives Sonny a home and a job as a mechanic on his farm in the lonely Louisiana Bayou. Sonny quickly settles in and makes himself useful around the place but then Sonny meets Larissa, George's alluring wife. She has a mysterious past and the two are irresistibly drawn to each other. The two begin a passionate affair leading them to construct a twisted plot to take George's life in cold blood in order to be together. As their despicable plan unravels, they learn how far they are willing to go to cover their misdeed.
Canal Street
Prosecutor A.J. Canton
A Chicago lawyer embraces his undying faith when his teenage son is accused of murdering a classmate.
Chocolate City: Vegas Strip
Best Valentine
The Chocolate City dancers come together to save their club from foreclosure. They decide to enter a national stripper competition, traveling all the way to Las Vegas to try their luck.
Allegiant
Max
Beatrice Prior and Tobias Eaton venture into the world outside of the fence and are taken into protective custody by a mysterious agency known as the Bureau of Genetic Welfare.
Pandemic
Gunner
After a virus of epic proportions overwhelms the planet—with more infected than uninfected—humanity is losing its grip on survival and its only hope is finding a cure and keeping the infected contained. Lauren, a doctor, arrives in Los Angeles with her crack team to lead the hunt for uncontaminated civilian survivors, but nothing can prepare them for the blood-soaked mayhem they witness as they head into the Californian streets where everything is considered a trap.
Insurgent
Max
Beatrice Prior must confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance which threatens to tear her society apart.
A Day Late and a Dollar Short
Lewis
When irascible matriarch Viola Price learns that her next asthma attack will likely kill her, she is determined to fix her fractured family before she leaves this world.
Divergent
Max
In a world divided into factions based on personality types, Tris learns that she's been classified as Divergent and won't fit in. When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before it's too late.
The Love Section
James Johnson
Ali (LAWRENCE ADISA), is a struggling real estate agent and ladies man who has never desired to commit to anyone or anything. One night while out with his buddy Chris (OMAR MILLER), Ali meets and falls for Sandrine (DAVETTA SHERWOOD), a single mother who works hard and is looking for love. Ali’s best friend Joel (BRIAN HOOKS) and his wife (TANGI MILLER) are happy to see Ali cut off his line of women, while Sandrine’s best friend Steph (TEYANA TAYLOR) is unenthusiastic about Sandrine welcoming a man into her home to meet her son and mother (KELLITA SMITH). With a declining real estate career and issues with his new relationship, Ali starts questioning just how committed he’s willing to be. One important meeting with real estate mogul James Johnson (MEKHI PHIFER) could change his life for forever. For the first time it looks like Ali may make a transformation if he can steer clear of obstacles. In the end will love conquer all? Or will broken hearts be all that’s left of their romance?
The Suspect
The Suspect
Two African American social scientists pose as bank robbers in an effort to understand the racial dynamics of small-town law enforcement. However, their experiment takes an unplanned turn.
Flypaper
Darrien
A man caught in the middle of two simultaneous robberies at a bank desperately tries to protect the teller with whom he's secretly in love.
Torchwood: Miracle Day
Rex Matheson
One day, nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next. People keep ageing. They get hurt and sick, but they never die. The populace of the planet dub this "Miracle Day" for the immortality they now seem to have. It is up to Torchwood to uncover the conspiracy.
Last Man Standing
Jeremy Davis
Abby Collins's quiet life as a wife and mother shows no trace of her past work as a military special-ops expert -- until the day her husband is kidnapped. With no alternative, Abby must resort to her long-dormant lethal skills to save her spouse.
A Day in the Life
King Khi
Onyx rapper Sticky Fingaz directs and stars in this hip-hop musical about a gangster who gets caught up in a bloody war between two feuding crime families while struggling to leave the streets behind. When Black's family raids one of Stick's drug houses and kills two of his men, Stick is forced to choose between leaving it all behind or seeking revenge and feeding the cycle of violence.
Nora's Hair Salon II: A Cut Above
Production Artist
Simone arrives in Los Angeles after inheriting her late aunt's hair salon where she soon clashes with the diva hairstylist who has her own ideas about the salon's future.
Nora's Hair Salon II: A Cut Above
Maxwell Terry
Simone arrives in Los Angeles after inheriting her late aunt's hair salon where she soon clashes with the diva hairstylist who has her own ideas about the salon's future.
This Christmas
Gerald
This year Christmas with the Whitfields promises to be one they will never forget. All the siblings have come home for the first time in years and they've brought plenty of baggage with them. As the Christmas tree is trimmed and the lights are hung, secrets are revealed and family bonds are tested. As their lives converge, they join together and help each other discover the true meaning of family.
Puff, Puff, Pass
Producer
Danny Masterson (TV's 'That '70s Show') leads a hilarious ensemble cast in a tale about two hapless stoners who get involved in a scheme to rip off a shady character named Mr. Big after the duo sours on rehab.
Puff, Puff, Pass
Director
Danny Masterson (TV's 'That '70s Show') leads a hilarious ensemble cast in a tale about two hapless stoners who get involved in a scheme to rip off a shady character named Mr. Big after the duo sours on rehab.
Puff, Puff, Pass
Big Daddy
Danny Masterson (TV's 'That '70s Show') leads a hilarious ensemble cast in a tale about two hapless stoners who get involved in a scheme to rip off a shady character named Mr. Big after the duo sours on rehab.
Slow Burn
Isaac Duperde
A district attorney (Ray Liotta) is involved in a 24-hour showdown with a gang leader (LL Cool J) and is, at the same time, being manipulated by an attractive assistant district attorney (Jolene Blalock) and a cryptic stranger.
Dawn of the Dead
Andre
A group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall after the world is taken over by aggressive, flesh-eating zombies.
Honey
Chaz
Honey Daniels dreams of making a name for herself as a hip-hop choreographer. When she's not busy hitting downtown clubs with her friends, she teaches dance classes at a nearby community center in Harlem, N.Y., as a way to keep kids off the streets. Honey thinks she's hit the jackpot when she meets a hotshot director casts her in one of his music videos. But, when he starts demanding sexual favors from her, Honey makes a decision that will change her life.
The Making of '8 Mile'
Self
8 Mile
David "Future" Porter
For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.
Paid in Full
Mitch
Ace is an impressionable young man working for a dry cleaning business. His friend, drug dealer Mitch goes to prison. In an unrelated incident, he finds some cocaine in a pants pocket. Soon, Ace finds himself dealing cocaine for Lulu. Via lucky breaks and solid interpersonal skills, Ace moves to the top of the Harlem drug world. Of course, unfaithful employees and/or rivals conspire to bring about Ace's fall.
The Other Brother
Martin
A frustrated writer reluctantly turns to his womanizing brother for advice about the opposite sex.
Impostor
Cale
A top-secret government weapons designer is arrested by a clandestine government organization on suspicion of being a clone created by the hostile alien race wanting to take over Earth.
Brian's Song
Gale Sayers
The story of professional football players Gale Sayes and Brian Piccolo, and how their friendship on and off the field was affected when Piccolo contracted a fatal disease
O
Odin James
Even though he's the only black student at the elite Palmetto Grove Academy, star basketball player and future NBA hopeful Odin James has the adoration of all, including the team's coach and the Dean's beautiful daughter Desi. Odin's troubled friend Hugo, the coach's son, is deeply resentful of his father's preference of Odin on and off the court. When Hugo plots a diabolical scheme to sow the seed of mistrust between O and Desi, it sets in motion a disturbing chain of events which erupts into a firestorm of breathtaking intensity.
Carmen: A Hip Hopera
Hill
An engaged Philadelphia policeman falls in love with a beautiful woman while dealing with a corrupt superior.
Shaft
Trey Howard
New York police detective John Shaft arrests Walter Wade Jr. for a racially motivated slaying. But the only eyewitness disappears, and Wade jumps bail for Switzerland. Two years later Wade returns to face trial, confident his money and influence will get him acquitted -- especially since he's paid a drug kingpin to kill the witness.
Uninvited Guest
Silk
During a small gathering, a smooth, seductive stranger is invited into a couple's house party and falls in love with the wife. Turns out the stranger is an escaped convict who demands that the wife leave the country with him and threatens to kill anyone who stands in his way.
A Lesson Before Dying
Jefferson
In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
Tyrell
Ever since killing the Fisherman one year ago, Julie James is still haunted by images of him after her. When her best friend Karla wins free tickets to the Bahamas, Julie finds this a perfect opportunity to finally relax. But someone is waiting for her. Someone who she thought was dead. Someone who is out again for revenge.
Hell's Kitchen
Johnny Miles
When a robbery goes awry, the bandits all end up in a puddle of blood and only one lives and goes to jail for five years. Upon his release, the girlfriend wants her new boyfriend to kill him. Only trouble is the boyfriend knows that the fault was not the ex-con's and can't bring himself to do the task. Meanwhile, the ex-con tries to turn his life around by becoming a boxer and training under a former heavyweight contender.
Soul Food
Lem
Traditional Sunday dinners at Mama Joe's (Irma P. Hall) turn sour when sisters Teri (Vanessa L. Williams), Bird (Nia Long) and Maxine (Vivica A. Fox) start bringing their problems to the dinner table in this ensemble comedy. When tragedy strikes, it's up to grandson Ahmad (Brandon Hammond) to pull the family together and put the soul back into the family's weekly gatherings.
Hav Plenty
Harold
Lee Plenty is an almost broke would-be novelist and Havilland Savage is a rich and very beautiful woman and his friend. When she invites him to her home for New Year's Eve, they start to build up a romance.
Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground
Man in Hallway (segment "Fern's Heart of Darkness")
The actual experiences of New York City subway riders are dramatized in a collection of 10 intriguing and very different vignettes. The tales showcase an ensemble of familiar faces, and range from stories of compassion and love to reflections on violence and loss. Among them: a disabled beggar quarrels with a woman and ruins her shoes with his wheelchair, provoking onlookers to wrath and pity; a skittish tourist proves to be her own worst enemy; a newlywed trysts with a mysterious sexpot; a commuter helplessly witnesses a suicide attempt; and, in the most affecting segment, a young woman grieves over her mother's imminent death.
High School High
Griff McReynolds
Richard Clark has just left the well-known Wellington Academy to teach at Marion Barry High School. Now, he will try to inspire the D-average students into making good grades and try to woo a fellow teacher.
Girl 6
Himself (cameo) (uncredited)
A struggling actress in New York City takes a job as a phone sex operator.
Clockers
Ronald 'Strike' Dunham
Strike is a young city drug pusher under the tutelage of drug lord Rodney Little. When a night manager at a fast-food restaurant is found with four bullets in his body, Strike’s older brother turns himself in as the killer. Det. Rocco Klein doesn’t buy the story, however, setting out to find the truth, and it seems that all the fingers point toward Strike & Rodney.
The Tuskegee Airmen
Lewis Johns
During the Second World War, a special project is begun by the US Army Air Corps to integrate African American pilots into the Fighter Pilot Program. Known as the "Tuskegee Airman" for the name of the airbase at which they were trained, these men were forced to constantly endure harassement, prejudice, and much behind the scenes politics until at last they were able to prove themselves in combat.
The Silent Hour
Lynch
While working a case as an interpreter, a hearing-impaired police detective must confront a group of criminals trying to eliminate a deaf murder witness in her apartment building.
The Supremes At Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat
Three best friends dubbed “The Supremes,” who have weathered life’s storms together for two generations through marriage and children, happiness and the blues, find their paths at a crossroads that test their lifelong bond.