Into the Badlands

Lorraine Toussaint

Lorraine Toussaint, a SAG Award winner and NAACP Image Award nominee, shocked audiences as the viciously seductive inmate Vee on the second season of the hit Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. Toussaint’s epically thrilling performance won her glowing reviews from the likes of TV Guide and Vanity Fair, and a Best Supporting Actress award from the Critics’ Choice Television Awards. Toussaint also received praise for her performances in the Academy Award-nominated feature film Selma and her starring role in the ABC fantasy/drama series Forever. Born in Trinidad, Toussaint moved to Brooklyn, New York, with her mother when she was ten years old. An early interest in acting led to her enrollment in New York’s renowned High School of Performing Arts, followed by the prestigious Juilliard School’s drama division, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. On graduation day, she landed her first paying job as Lady Macbeth with Shakespeare & Company. Toussaint spent the first 12 years of her career acting on stage in New York City before moving to Los Angeles. Her first television appearance was in 1983 in The Face of Rage. Toussaint’s biggest career boost came from her starring role in the TV series Any Day Now, which earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series and the Wiley A. Branton Award from the National Bar Association. Among Toussaint’s TV credits are recurring roles on several popular television shows, including NBC’s drama series Friday Night Lights, TNT’s Saving Grace, Dick Wolf’s Law & Order, and ABC’s hit Ugly Betty. She has also made guest appearances on the hit television shows CSI: Crime Investigation, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, and opposite Kerry Washington on ABC’s drama thriller Scandal. Her series Any Day Now was an early success for Lifetime. No stranger to the silver screen, Toussaint’s first film role was opposite Burt Reynolds in the crime comedy Breaking In. She has also appeared in Dangerous Minds, The Soloist, and Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, which garnered her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female. Most recently she was seen in the Seth Rogen comedy The Night Before, Maggie Greenwald’s Sophie and the Rising Sun, Love Beats Rhythm, and the upcoming Sprinter and Fast Color, opposite Gugu Mbatha-Raw and David Strathairn. Toussaint just finished a two-season run on Fox’s Rosewood.