Aja Naomi King

Aja Naomi King is an American actress who began with guest spots on television and then led the CW medical comedy-drama Emily Owens, M.D. for its single season. Born in Los Angeles and brought up in Walnut, California, she trained in acting at the University of California, Santa Barbara, then studied at Yale University's School of Drama. Her breakthrough came when she played Michaela Pratt on How to Get Away with Murder, the ABC legal series that ran from 2014 to 2020 and earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination. She won praise for her portrayal of Cherry Turner in The Birth of a Nation (2016), which brought another NAACP Image Award nomination and a place on Variety's Sundance breakthrough list. Her feature debut was Damsels in Distress (2011). She later starred in the romantic comedy Boxing Day (2021). She also appeared in The Upside (2019). She earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Lessons in Chemistry.