Nicole Ari Parker

Seven-time NAACP Image Award nominated actor, producer, and entrepreneur Nicole Ari Parker most recently stared in the HBOMAX Series  hit “And Just Like That”, the wildly successful reboot of the iconic comedy Sex and The City.

Parker is best known for her outstanding performance as Teri Joseph on Showtime’s award-winning original series “Soul Food” and has previously been featured in a variety of hit television series including NBC’s “Chicago P.D.”, Fox’s “Empire”, Amazon’s “The Romanoffs” and Showtime’s “I'm Dying up Here”.

On the big screen she starred in such hits as “Boogie Nights” with Marc Wahlberg and Don Cheadle, opposite DenzelWashington in “Remember The Titans”, with Eddie Murphy in “Imagine That”, alongside Forest Whitaker in “How It Ends”, in “Brown Sugar” with her husband Boris Kodjoe and in “Almost Christmas” opposite Danny Glover and Gabrielle Union.

Parker commanded the stage at the Broadhurst Theater in her 2012 Broadway debut as Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire" opposite Blair Underwood for director Emily Mann. Her powerful performance as Blanche earned her an Outer Critics Award nomination. In 2014, she reunited with director Emily Mann as

Cleopatra in "Antony and Cleopatra” at the McCarter Theatre Center. Parker is a graduate of NYU’s famed Tisch School of the Arts, Circle in the Square Studio. She received a special award at the Urban World Film Festival, for Outstanding Body of Work as an Actress.

In 2023, Parker starred in the Off-Broadway World Premiere of Nathan Alan Davis’ “The Refuge Plays”, in a limited engagement at the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre. Her transcendent performance won her both a 2024 Lucille Lortel Award nomination and Drama League nominations.

In 2012, Parker created and launched The GymWrap™ -- a fitness apparel company featuring stylish headbands developed to minimize sweat absorption through a unique blend of materials and patented technology that allows heat to escape while letting cool air in. The GymWrap is sold online and in over 1400 retail outlets nationwide.

In 2010, Parker and her husband founded the Kodjoe Family Foundation, a charitable organization to raise awareness for global health and wellness initiatives in multicultural communities. KFF also helped launch the Center for Spina Bifida Prevention at Emory University. In 2019, they founded Full Circle Africa which is changing the narrative on Africa through cultural and business convenings. 2026 initiatives include financial literacy of young adults. 

Now with their daughter at Howard University and their son playing professional basketball for Bayern Munich, they share their upstate New York home with their two dogs Max and Teddy.