Octavia Spencer

Octavia Spencer is an American actress, author, and producer. She is known for her role as Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures, Minny Jackson in The Help.

For Netflix, she is known for her role in the 2020 Netflix limited series, Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker, in which she portrays Madam C.J. Walker. She also plays Emily Stanton in the 2021 superhero comedy film Thunder Force.

Biography
She was born in Montgomery, Alabama. She graduated from Jefferson Davis High School in 1988. She studied at Auburn University at Montgomery, and graduated from Auburn University, where she majored in English with a double minor in journalism and theater.

Spencer made her film debut in the 1996 drama A Time to Kill. Following a decade of brief roles in film and television, her breakthrough came in 2011, when she played a maid in 1960s America in The Help, for which she won several awards. She also appeared in the films Smashed (2012), Snowpiercer (2013), Get on Up (2014), The Divergent Series (2015–16), Gifted (2017), Instant Family (2018), and Onward (2020); and had starring roles in The Shack (2017), Luce (2019), and Ma (2019).

She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. She is one of two women of color to have received three Oscar nominations and the first Black actress to receive two consecutive nominations.

Movies

 * Thunder Force

Series

 * Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker