Zazie Beetz

Soon after graduating from Skidmore College—after, she says, spending a year “broke and waiting tables,” Zazie Beetz (birthname: Zazie Olivia Beetz) first made her mark in film and TV with her recurring role as Van Keefer on the hit Fox series, Atlanta (2016-present), although she had already acted in Josh Mond’s indie feature, James White (2015), with Christopher Abbott and Cynthia Nixon, and Onur Tukel’s Applesauce (2015), with Max Casella and Dylan Baker.

Beetz was part of the ensemble of Bart Freundlich’s IFC release, Wolves (2016), with Michael Shannon and Carla Gugino, and acclaimed indie filmmaker Matt Porterfield’s drama Sollers Point (2017), with Jim Belushi and Marin Ireland. Beetz’s extremely diverse filmography is her trademark, appearing in such big budget genre vehicles as Dean Devlin’s Geostorm (2017), with Gerard Butler, Abbie Cornish, and Ed Harris, though the $120 million budgeted film lost money for distributor Warner Bros.; Deadpool 2 (2018), Beetz’s first collaboration with director David Leitch, and starring Ryan Reynolds; and Todd Phillips’ Oscar-nominated Joker (2019), with Joaquin Phoenix, which became the highest grossing R-rated film in history with a worldwide return exceeding $1 billion.

In contrast, Zazie Beetz has also acted in several distinctive indie films, including Cathy Yun’s Chinese comedy, Dead Pigs (2018), with Vivian Wu; Babak Anvari’s first English-language feature, Wounds (2019), with Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson; Steven Soderbergh’s snappy look at the sports business, High Flying Bird (2019), with André Holland; Benedict Andrews’ biopic on Jean Seberg, Seberg (2019), with Kristen Stewart and Jack O’Connell; Noah Hawley’s outer space drama, Lucy in the Sky (2019), with Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm; Edson Oda’s Sundance-premiering Nine Days (2020), with Winston Duke and Benedict Wong.

One of Beetz’s most successful American indie films appeared in 2021, with Jaymes Samuel’s stylized Western, The Harder They Fall, with Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, Delroy Lindo, and Lakeith Stanfield. Beetz reunited with director David Leitch for the action comedy, Bullet Train (2022), with Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Joey King, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.