Dewayne Perkins

Dewayne Perkins is a versatile, Emmy-nominated comic actor-writer who has both performed in and written for such long-running series as Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Saved by the Bell and made his big-screen breakthrough in 2023. Perkins’ debut feature role was a supporting turn in the Chicago-based indie comedy, Roundabout American (2012), co-written and directed by Boris Wexler.

Perkins’ next feature role was in co-producer/director Collin Schiffli’s indie drama, Animals (2014), which won Special Jury Award at the South by Southwest film festival. Perkins was cast by director M.J. Anderson in the found-footage drama, Followed (2015), and then Perkins joined the cast of the mockumentary, The Bobby Roberts Project (2018), including Eric Roberts, Fred Willard, Chris Kattan, and Matthew Broussard under the shared direction by Brett Hudson and writer Tom Wilbeck.

As a writer, Perkins wrote—in addition to serving as a staff writer on several TV series, including The Break with Michelle Wolf, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Saved by the Bell, and The Amber Ruffin Show—a TV comedy short for 3Peat titled 3Peat Presents: The Blackening (2018). Perkins adapted this short (with Tracy Oliver) into a feature, The Blackening (2023), for which he co-produced with director Tim Story, Oliver, E. Brian Dobbins, Marcei A. Brown, Jason Clark, and Sharla Sumpter Bridgett, and also co-starred with Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Grace Byers, and Jay Pharoah.