Biography

Graduated from New York University with an MFA in 2006.

In a 2017 New York Times article about actors' first exposures to the plays of August Wilson, André Holland said that the first time he ever saw one of Wilson's plays was during high school, when when his mother took him to a production of "The Piano Lesson" at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery. Reflecting on that experience, he said, "I didn't know people could do that onstage: talk the way people I knew talked, face the same issues that people in my community faced." In 2017 Holland went on to appear in one of Wilson's plays himself: the Broadway debut of "Jitney.".

Graduated from John Carroll High School, a private Catholic high school in Birmingham, Alabama. His drama teacher there, Darrell Revel, was the first person to tell him he was talented enough to be a professional actor.

From July to October 2018, he played the title role in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre's production of Othello in London, opposite Mark Rylance as 'Iago'.

In 2019 Holland bought the Lincoln Theater, a long-unused movie theater in his hometown of Bessemer, Alabama. He intends to renovate the Lincoln into a community performing arts center.