Jay Ellis is an actor, producer, director, and writer best known for starring on the HBO and Issa Rae critically-acclaimed comedy series Insecure for 5 seasons. In 2022, he starred alongside Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, and Glen Powell in Top Gun: Maverick, the highest grossing film in the US that year. Most recently, Ellis can be seen alongside Kate Hudson, Max Greenfield, and Justin Theroux in the Mindy Kaling and Netflix series RUNNING POINT, which premiered February 27th on the streamer. Soon, he will star as a fictional version of Sleepy Floyd in the Lionsgate anthology film Freaky Tales, and will star alongside Sarah Snook in the Peacock series All Her Fault, based on the Andrea Mara novel of the same name.

Ellis won the NAACP Image Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2018 and was nominated again for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2019 and 2021. In 2022, he was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series. Insecure was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the category of “Outstanding Comedy Series” in 2017, 2018, 2021, and 2022.

As a producer, Ellis released the film BLACK BOX for Amazon with Blumhouse Productions under his production company banner Black Bar Mitzvah. Since its launch in 2018, they’ve set up projects at Hulu, BET+, AMC Studios, Viacom, FXX, HBO, Peacock, Sony, CBS, and Netflix.