Wendell Edward Pierce is an American actor. He is known for his roles in HBO dramas such as Detective Bunk Moreland in The Wire and trombonist Antoine Batiste in Treme, as well as portraying James Greer in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, as high-powered attorney Robert Zane in Suits, and additionally as Michael Davenport in Waiting to Exhale. Pierce also had roles in the films Malcolm X, Ray, and Selma. Pierce performed the lead role of Willy Loman in the 2019 production of Death of a Salesman on the West End in London at the Piccadilly Theatre. He has been thrice nominated for Independent Spirit Awards.

Pierce has been in over 30 films, appeared in nearly 50 television shows, and has performed in dozens of stage productions. He worked on the HBO dramas The Wire and Treme. He appeared in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 as "J. Jenks".

For his role in Treme, Pierce learned to play the trombone, though he relied on "sound double" Stafford Agee of the Rebirth Brass Band. Agee played off-camera for Pierce, syncing his trombone with Wendell's motions for authenticity.

Pierce was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his portrayal of "Joe" in Four, playing a married and closeted gay man who steps out on his family with a young white man he met online. The film was released on September 13, 2013, around the same time that The Michael J. Fox Show debuted on NBC in which Pierce played Michael J. Fox's character's boss until the show's cancellation some five months later.

From 2015 to 2017, Pierce starred, alongside Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon, in a revival of the sitcom The Odd Couple on CBS playing the role of Teddy.

When Mike Henry stepped down as the voice of Cleveland Brown in Family Guy in light of the George Floyd protests, Pierce launched a campaign to become Henry's replacement. Unfortunately, he lost the role to actor and YouTube personality Arif "Azerrz" Zahir. 

Pierce has been in numerous stage productions. He was lauded for his performance as Holt Fay in Queenie at the John F. Kennedy Center. He has performed on Broadway in staged productions of The Piano Lesson, Serious Money, and The Boys of Winter. He has performed off-Broadway in The Cherry Orchard (for which he was nominated for a VIV Award for Lead Actor), Waiting for Godot (which was set on a New Orleans rooftop post-Hurricane Katrina), and Broke-ology performed at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Other performances include Cymbeline (at The Public Theater), The Good Times Are Killing Me, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Tis Pity She's a Whore, and Ms. Ever's Boys performed at the ACT Theatre.

Pierce is also a theater producer and produced the Broadway show, Clybourne Park. The show was nominated for four Tony Awards; it won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2012.

In 2015, Pierce returned to the stage to star in the Billie Holiday Theatre production of Jackie Alexander's Brothers from the Bottom in New York.

In 2019, Pierce starred in the acclaimed Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic Theatre in London and its successful transfer to the West End. For this performance, he received a nomination for the Olivier Award for Best Actor. 

In 2009, Pierce became the host of the nationally syndicated, Peabody Award-winning radio program, Jazz at Lincoln Center which features live recordings from Jazz at Lincoln Center's House of Swing.

In 2016, Pierce started appearing on several albums recorded in New Orleans. He recorded a song with Delfayeo Marsalis called "Make America Great Again", with Kermit Ruffins on Irvin Mayfield's and Ruffins' album, A Beautiful World, and with Stanton Moore on Moore's album, With You In Mind. Most recently, Pierce recorded "The Ever Fonky Lowdown" with Wynton Marsalis. 

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