Keivonn Montreal Woodard (born February 9, 2013) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Sam in the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

post-apocalyptic drama series ''

The Last of Us ''The Last of Us'' is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Players control Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, across a post-apocalyptic United States ...

'' (2023), for which he received a nomination for the

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series is an award presented annually by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a guest st ...

Career

Woodard made his film debut in 2018 with the film ''Seeds of Hope: The Andrew Jackson Foster Story''. He earned wider recognition and critical acclaim for his performance in the

post-apocalyptic drama series ''

''. Woodard starred as Sam, a survivor who travels with his brother Henry in the episodes " Please Hold to My Hand" and " Endure and Survive". Woodard, who is

Deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

, was hired for ''The Last of Us'' after series co-creator

Craig Mazin Craig Mazin (born 1971) is an American writer, director, and producer. He is best known for creating, writing, and producing the HBO historical disaster drama miniseries ''Chernobyl (miniseries), Chernobyl'' (2019) and co-creating, co-writing, an ...

, looking for a young actor fluent in

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that i ...

, sent a casting call out via

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

. For his role in the series, Woodard was nominated for the

, becoming the youngest nominee in the category at age 10 and the second-youngest Emmy nominee after

Keshia Knight Pulliam Keshia Knight Pulliam (born April 9, 1979) is an American actress. She began her career as a child actress. She landed her breakthrough role as Rudy Huxtable, on the NBC sitcom ''The Cosby Show'' (1984–1992), and became the youngest person to ...

for ''

The Cosby Show ''The Cosby Show'' is an American television sitcom created by (along with Ed. Weinberger and Michael J. Leeson) and starring Bill Cosby that originally aired on NBC from September 20, 1984, to April 30, 1992, with a total of 201 half-hour e ...

''. He is the first black deaf actor and second deaf actor overall (after

Marlee Matlin Marlee Matlin (born August 24, 1965) is an American actress, activist, and author. Deafness, Deaf since she was 18 months old, Matlin is known for her portrayals of deaf women, and for her activism on behalf of deaf individuals in Cinema of the ...

) to be nominated for an Emmy Award. His performance also earned him an

Independent Spirit Award The Independent Spirit Awards, originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards, and later as the Film Independent Spirit Awards, are awards presented annually in Santa Monica, California, to independent filmmakers. Founded in ...

and nominations for a Black Reel TV Award and an

NAACP Image Award The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film, television, theatre, music, and literature. The over 40 ...

. In August 2024, Woodard was an honoree of ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

''s Kid of the Year. Woodard is set to appear in ''Fractal'', a short film by Anslem Richardson, as well as ''Steal Away'', a feature film by Stephen Ashley Blake.

Personal life

Born on February 9, 2013, Woodard lives in

Bowie, Maryland Bowie () is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. Per the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 58,329. Bowie has grown from a small railroad stop to the largest municipality in Prince George's County; i ...

, with his mother, April Jackson-Woodard; his father, Dwayne Woodard, died in 2021. In addition to acting, he plays

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Woodard, Keivonn American male deaf actors Living people 2013 births 21st-century African-American male actors 21st-century American male actors African-American male child actors American male child actors Actors from Maryland People from Bowie, Maryland