With all the film and TV projects that have been shot here, our city has no shortage of talented local stage actors successfully crossing over to do film and television work. Case in point: our September issue cover star, Danielle Deadwyler. Here are some other notable Atlantans you may have first seen onstage who now lend their talents to both the big and small screens.
Photograph by Theo and Juliet
Megan Hayes
Onstage in Atlanta: Sex with Strangers at Horizon Theatre in 2016 and multiple Georgia Shakespeare theater productions. Hayes also wrote a Suzi Bass Award–winning play for kids, Unnecessary Monsters.
On-screen: Hayes is best known as a Morphling from District Six in 2013’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and had a role in the Apple TV miniseries Manhunt.
Photograph by Robert Mitchell Owenby
Suehyla El-Attar Young
Onstage in Atlanta: Young was in Steve Yockey’s latest play, Mercury, at Actor’s Express in April and in 2023’s Support Group for Men at Horizon Theatre.
On-screen: She was in 2014’s Million Dollar Arm and in both Ant-Man and the Wasp and Green Book in 2018.
Photograph by Josh Stringer
Stephen Ruffin
Onstage in Atlanta: Ruffin was in Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The Troy Davis Project at Synchronicity Theatre and Macbeth at Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse.
On-screen: Ruffin is a busy young actor, playing Wilson on the TV series Snowfall in 2021. He also acted in BMF: Black Mafia Family on Starz in 2023, and in the Netflix horror movie short Disco Inferno.
Photograph courtesy of Horizon Theatre
Enoch King
Onstage in Atlanta: King acted in Horizon Theatre’s The Light in 2022 and Kenny Leon’s 2023 True Colors production of That Serious He-Man Ball.
On-screen: He played Johnny B. Washington in 2022’s Till and was featured in 2024’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die and FX’s Atlanta.
Photograph by Joshua Kissi/© BET/Paramount
Brittany Inge
Onstage in Atlanta: The Spelman grad has been seen in Blackberry Daze and The Ballad of Klook and Vinette, both at Horizon Theatre.
On-screen: She was in the BET original series The Ms. Pat Show and had a featured role as divorced ad exec Crystal on the BET series Boomerang.
Photograph courtesy of David de Vries
David de Vries
Onstage in Atlanta: de Vries has appeared in the Alliance Theatre productions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Christmas Carol.
On-screen: He played AJC editor John Walter in Clint Eastwood’s 2019 Richard Jewell and Hiram Walcott in Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy in 2020.
This article appears in our November 2024 issue.
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