Michael Jai White began his screen-career in 1989 with small parts in ‘The Toxic Avenger: Part II and Part III,’ followed by ‘True Identity’ (1991) and ‘Universal Soldier’ (1992). He appeared in a few TV-series, including ‘Martin’ (1994) and ‘NYPD Blue’ (1995).
White’s breakthrough came with the biographical TV-movie ‘Tyson’ (1995) wherein he portrayed heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson and earned praise. His next big feature was ‘Spawn’ (1997) in the title role as superhero ‘Spawn/Al Simmons,’ thus becoming first African-American to star as a major comic-book hero, fetching a nomination for ‘Blockbuster Entertainment Award.’
White worked with Jean-Claude Van Damme in ‘Universal Soldier: The Return’ (1999), then appeared with Steven Segal in ‘Exit Wounds’ (2001). After featuring in ‘Silver Hawk’ (2004), he starred in direct-to-video martial arts-film ‘Undisputed II: Last Man Standing’ (2006).
White next starred in the box-office hit comedy-drama ‘Why Did I Get Married?’ (2007), and later its sequel, ‘Why Did I Get Married Too?’ (2010) and the spinoff sitcom-series ‘For Better or Worse’ (2011-2017). In the superhero-film ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008), he essayed mob-boss ‘Gambol,’ and he wrote and starred in the lead role in the Blaxploitation action-comedy ‘Black Dynamite’ (2009).Â
White appeared as ‘Isaiah Bone’ in the martial arts-film ‘Blood and Bone’ (2009) and played ‘Jax Briggs’ in the short-film ‘Mortal Kombat: Rebirth’ (2010) and the web-series ‘Mortal Kombat: Legacy’ (2011), both based on video games-series.
White starred in his directorial debut, martial arts-film ‘Never Back Down-2: The Beatdown’ (2011) and its sequel, ‘Never Back Down: No Surrender’ (2016). He had a recurring role in the crime-drama series ‘The Family Business’ (2018-2020). He then starred in ‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ (2020), a remake of the 1995 film ‘Sudden Death,’ earned popularity on Netflix. He also provided voice for the video-game ‘Justice League Heroes,’ and the animated-series ‘Black Dynamite.’   Â