Octavia Spencer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Octavia Spencer
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Spencer at the White House in 2016
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Octavia Lenora Spencer
May 25, 1970 Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.
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| Education | Auburn University at Montgomery Auburn University (BA) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Awards | Full list |
Octavia Lenora Spencer (born May 25, 1970) is a talented American actress. She has won many important awards, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award. She has also been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards.
Octavia Spencer first appeared in a movie in 1996, in the drama A Time to Kill. After many small roles in movies and TV shows, she became very famous in 2011. This happened when she played a maid in the 1960s in the movie The Help. For this role, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Later, she won another award for her role in the movie Fruitvale Station (2013). She also had a regular role in the TV show Mom from 2013 to 2015. She also starred in the TV drama Red Band Society from 2014 to 2015.
Spencer played other important Black women from the 1960s. She was Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures (2016) and a cleaning woman in The Shape of Water (2017). These roles earned her two more nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. This made her the first Black actress to be nominated for an Oscar two times in a row after winning one. Since then, she has appeared in many other films like The Divergent Series (2015–16), The Shack (2017), Gifted (2017), Instant Family (2018), Luce (2019), Ma (2019), Onward (2020), and Spirited (2022). She also led the Apple TV+ show Truth Be Told (2019–2023). She was nominated for an Emmy Award for playing Madam C. J. Walker in the Netflix show Self Made (2020).
Besides acting, Octavia Spencer is also an author. She created a children's book series called Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective. She has published two books in this series: The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit (2013) and The Sweetest Heist in History (2015).
Contents
Early Life and Education
Octavia Lenora Spencer was born on May 25, 1970, in Montgomery, Alabama. She has six brothers and sisters. Her mother, Dellsena Spencer, worked as a maid. Octavia's father passed away when she was thirteen years old.
She finished Jefferson Davis High School in 1988. She then went to Auburn University at Montgomery and later graduated from Auburn University. There, she studied English and also learned about journalism and theater. Octavia Spencer has dyslexia, which means she sometimes has difficulty with reading. She also worked as an intern on the movie set of The Long Walk Home, which starred Whoopi Goldberg.
In December 2021 and 2022, Octavia Spencer, who is an alumna of Auburn University, bought food for students during their final exams.
Acting Career Highlights
Starting Out: 1996–2009
In 1996, Octavia Spencer made her first movie appearance as a nurse in A Time to Kill. This movie was based on a book by John Grisham. She was first hired to help with casting, but she asked the director if she could try out for a part. In 1997, she moved to Los Angeles. Her friend Tate Taylor, who would later direct The Help, advised her to move there.
She appeared in many other movies during this time, including Never Been Kissed, Big Momma's House, Spider-Man, and Bad Santa. She also made guest appearances on popular TV shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Big Bang Theory, and Wizards of Waverly Place. She had a regular role on the TV show Mom. She was also known for her roles as Serenity Johnson on Comedy Central's Halfway Home and Constance Grady on Ugly Betty.
In 2003, Spencer performed in her first and only play in Los Angeles. She explained that she has "intense stage fright", which made stage acting difficult for her. Later that year, she starred in a short film called Chicken Party.
In 2008, Octavia Spencer had a small but memorable role in the movie Seven Pounds. Her performance as a home care nurse received a lot of praise. In April 2009, Entertainment Weekly magazine named her one of the "25 Funniest Actresses in Hollywood".
In August 2009, Spencer was in the movie Halloween II. She also had a role in the American version of the Danish movie Love at First Hiccup. Spencer starred in the movie Herpes Boy. She also provided the voice for the character "Minny" in the audio version of the novel The Help. Later that year, her short film The Captain was recognized at a film festival.
Breakthrough and Awards: 2010–2019
In August 2010, Octavia Spencer joined Viola Davis, Emma Stone, and Bryce Dallas Howard in the movie The Help. This movie was based on a popular book. She played Minny Jackson, a strong and determined maid. The movie was written and directed by her friend Tate Taylor. For her amazing work in The Help, she won the 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. On February 12, 2012, Spencer also won a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress. Then, on February 26, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the same role. This was her first Oscar nomination and her first win. She received a standing ovation at the ceremony and was very emotional during her acceptance speech. In June 2012, Spencer was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which is the group that gives out the Oscars.
In 2013, she appeared with Michael B. Jordan in Fruitvale Station. This movie told the story of the last day of Oscar Grant, who was killed in 2009. In September 2013, it was announced that she would work again with The Help director Tate Taylor in a movie about singer James Brown called Get On Up. She starred alongside her The Help co-star Viola Davis in this film, which was released in 2014. From September 2014 to February 2015, she starred in Steven Spielberg's TV drama series Red Band Society.
Spencer also co-starred with Kevin Costner in the drama movie Black or White (2014). She played Johanna Reyes in the second Divergent movie, The Divergent Series: Insurgent (2015). She played this role again in The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016). She also voiced Mrs. Otterton in Disney's animated movie Zootopia, which was her first animated film.
In 2016, she starred with Taraji P. Henson and Janelle Monáe in Hidden Figures. This movie was about African-American mathematicians at NASA who were very important to the success of the Space Race in the 1960s. She played the mathematician Dorothy Vaughan. This role earned her a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. It also earned Spencer her second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. This made her the first Black actress to be nominated for another Oscar after already winning one. To celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Spencer bought out a movie screening of Hidden Figures in Los Angeles. She did this so that families who couldn't afford tickets could see the film for free.
In 2017, Spencer co-starred with Sally Hawkins in Guillermo del Toro's fantasy drama film The Shape of Water. In this movie, she played a cleaning woman who works at a secret government lab. The film received excellent reviews and won the Golden Lion award at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. Spencer was nominated for Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for her role. She also received her third Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. This made her the first Black actress to get two Oscar nominations in a row.
In 2018, Spencer had starring roles in two movies: A Kid Like Jake, where she played a preschool principal, and Instant Family, where she was a social worker. She also helped produce the movie Green Book, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In 2019, she starred as Harriet Wilson, a history teacher, in the drama film Luce. The movie was highly praised. She then received great reviews for her starring role as Sue Ann "Ma" Ellington in the psychological horror film Ma. This movie was directed by her frequent collaborator Tate Taylor. For this role, she was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actress. Also in 2019, Spencer returned to television. She helped produce and starred in the Apple TV+ drama series Truth Be Told.
Recent Work: 2020–Present
In January 2020, Octavia Spencer lent her voice to the character Dab-Dab, an excited duck, in the fantasy comedy movie Dolittle. She also voiced a manticore restaurant owner in the Pixar animated fantasy film Onward, which was released in March 2020 and received positive reviews.
Spencer also helped produce and starred as Madam C. J. Walker in the Netflix series Self Made. This series was released on March 20, 2020. For her performance in this series, Spencer was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.
Spencer starred alongside Anne Hathaway in Robert Zemeckis's horror comedy The Witches, which came out on October 22, 2020. Spencer also co-stars with Melissa McCarthy in the superhero comedy film Thunder Force. She will also work again with her The Help co-star Jessica Chastain for a holiday comedy movie.
Awards and Recognition
Octavia Spencer has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress three times, winning once. She is the first African-American actress to receive Oscar nominations in two years in a row. She is also the first African-American actress to receive two Oscar nominations after already winning one. She is the second-most nominated African-American actress for Oscars to date.
She has also won many other awards, including three Screen Actors Guild Awards, three National Board of Review Awards, two Satellite Awards, two Critics' Choice Movie Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a WSFA Award.
See also
In Spanish: Octavia Spencer para niños
