On stage & on the big screen, Delroy Lindo projects a powerful presence that is almost impossible to ignore. Though it was not his first film role, his portrayal of manic/depressive numbers boss West Indian Archie in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1992) is what first attracted attention to Lindo’s considerable talents. Since then his star has slowly been on the rise.
The son of Jamaican parents, Lindo was born and raised in Lewisham, England until his teens when he and his mother moved to Toronto, Canada. A little later, they moved to the U.S. where Lindo would graduate from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. After graduation, Lindo landed his first film role, that of an Army sergeant in More American Graffitti (1979). He would not appear in another film for ten years. In the meantime, Lindo worked on stage and in 1982, debuted on Broadway in ~Master Harold and the Boys} directed by the play’s author Athol Fugard. In 1988, Lindo earned a Tony nomination for his portayal of Harald Loomis in ~Joe Turner’s Come and Gone}.
Though he was obviously a talented actor with a bright future, Lindo’s career stalled. Wanting someone more agressive and appreciative of his talents, Lindo changed agents (he’d had the same one through most of his early career). It was a smart move, but it was director Spike Lee provided the boost Lindo’s career needed. The director was impressed enough with Lindo to cast him as patriarch Woody Carmichael in Lee’s semi-autobiographical comedy Crooklyn (1994). For Lindo, 1996 was a big year for he landed major supporting roles in six features including a heavy in Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty, another villainous supporting role in Lee’s Clockers, and still another bad-guy in Feeling Minnesota. Lest one believe that Lindo is typecast into forever playing drug lords and gangsters, that year he also played baseball player ~Satchel Paige} in the upbeat Baseball in Black and White (1996) winning himself a NAACP image nomination in the process. Lindo won the prestigious award for his work in Malcolm X. Since then, the versatile Lindo has shown himself equally adept at playing characters on both sides of the law. In 1997, he essayed an angel opposite Holly Hunter in Danny Boyle’s off-beat romantic fantasy A Life Less Ordinary.