Age: 57
female
Aunjanue L. Ellis-Taylor (born February 21, 1969) is an American actress. She has received several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. She has appeared in numerous films, including Men of Honor (2000), Undercover Brother (2002), Ray (2004), Freedomland (2006), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), The Help (2011), The Birth of a Nation (2016), and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for portraying Oracene Price in the sports drama King Richard (2021). She has since starred in The Color Purple (2023), Origin (2023), and Nickel Boys (2024). On television, Ellis had regular and recurring roles in the series High Incident (1996–1997), The Practice (1999), True Blood (2008), and The Mentalist (2010–2013). She also appeared in several television films, such as Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009), Abducted: The Carlina White Story (2013), and The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel (2020), as well as the miniseries The Book of Negroes (2015) and series Quantico (2015–2017). She was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards for her roles in the miniseries When They See Us (2019) and Lovecraft Country (2021) series. Description above from the Wikipedia article Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Terrifying creatures, unseen to all around him, have tormented Elisse since he was a little boy. These “nightmares” and the cruel life as a young Westerner in a refugee camp have left him isolated and alone. The only clue to his past is an old, tattered envelope with a picture of his father who mysteriously abandoned him at a monastery as a baby. When Elisse flees India and journeys to New Orleans in search of his father and the truth of his troubled existence, he finds not only the answers to his extraordinary life, an ancestral secret with a grave responsibility, but also the one thing he most desires. A family—but of beasts. Now, Elisse’s awakening gifts attract dark forces rooted in Louisiana magic, and he must do the unthinkable to protect everyone he loves. Will Elisse accept the burdens of his gifts and conquer darkness? Or will that same darkness consume him and destroy the love he so desperately longs for?
