Daveed Diggs

Actor and rapper Daveed Diggs grew up in the Northern California city of Oakland. The son of a Jewish mother and an African-American father, Diggs described himself as an awkward adolescent. Diggs graduated from Brown University in 2004 and went on to work in experimental hip-hop circles. In 2015, Diggs made his Broadway debut in the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical "Hamilton." Diggs was the originator of the role of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette. The show was based on Ron Chernow's 2004 biography of Hamilton and made its Off-Broadway debut in February 2015 before moving to Broadway and selling out shows at an unprecedented rate. Prior to being cast in "Hamilton," Diggs was living off $100 a week in unemployment benefits and couch surfing, sometimes riding the subway all night when he had no place to stay. In June 2016, he won the Best Featured Actor in a Musical Tony Award for his roles in "Hamilton." Beginning in the fall of 2016 he appeared in Baz Luhrmann's "The Get Down," and joined the cast of the ABC sitcom "Black-ish" in a recurring role as Johan, Rainbow's poetry-reading, Francophile little brother.