Megalyn Echikunwoke

Ebubennem Megalyn Ann Echikunwoke[5][6] was born in Spokane, Washington,[2] to Onigwe Echikunwoke, an Igbo Nigerian father, and Anita Laurie.[2] Her father, an immigrant to the United States, was a survivor of the Nigerian Civil War, during which he suffered gunshot wounds that resulted in him contracting hepatitis B.[6]

When Echikunwoke was four years old, her father, then studying for a law degree in Spokane, died of liver cancer stemming from the gunshot wounds he had sustained as a child.[6] Her mother subsequently raised Echikunwoke and her siblings on the Navajo Indian reservation in Chinle, Arizona.[2][7] At age 14, Echikunwoke was discovered while performing in a theater production at an arts academy summer camp.[2]

Echikunwoke in 2009

Echikunwoke's first featured role was a guest appearance on The Steve Harvey Show in 1998.[2] The following year, she had her first film role in Julie Dash's Funny Valentines.[8] In 2001, Echikunwoke starred in a lead role on the MTV soap opera, Spyder Games, as Cherish Pardee, a coffee house singer, which ran through the year.[2] She subsequently had a recurring role in the first season of 24 (2001–2002) as David Palmer's daughter, Nicole.[2] Beginning 2003, she appeared as Danika on the comedy series Like Family,[2] and guest-starred on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, appearing in the episode "The Killer in Me" (2003).[2] This was followed with a guest role on Veronica Mars in 2004.[2]

Between 2004 and 2005, Echikunwoke appeared on Fox's That '70s Show as Steven Hyde's half-sister, Angie Barnett.[2] In 2006, she was cast as a series regular on the science fiction television series The 4400, as the adult version of the mysterious Isabelle Tyler.[2] Echikunwoke left the show in 2007. From 2008 to 2009, she appeared in season 7 of CSI: Miami, Echikunwoke joined the cast as the new medical examiner, Dr. Tara Price.[2] She had a recurring role on TNT's Raising the Bar (2008–2009) where she played the love interest of attorney Marcus McGrath, played by J. August Richards.[9] Also in 2008, Echikunwoke appeared as a singer in the Leonard Chess biopic Who Do You Love?.[10] In 2011, Echikunwoke played Holly in the fourth season of 90210,[11] and subsequently appeared in the comedy film Damsels in Distress.[12]

She played April on Showtime's House of Lies (2012) and Riley Parker in the legal drama Made in Jersey (also 2012) on CBS.[13] In 2014, she co-starred in the drama series Mind Games on ABC.

In 2016, Echikunwoke appeared on the CW's Arrow as the DC Comics superhero Mari McCabe / Vixen for an episode, as well as providing her voice for the character in the CW Seed animated series Vixen. Due to prior commitments, she was unavailable to play the character in Legends of Tomorrow, resulting in the introduction of a new Vixen played by Maisie Richardson-Sellers, who is the time-displaced grandmother of Echikunwoke's character. Echikunwoke had a supporting role in Dax Shepard's CHiPs (2017), followed by the comedy An Actor Prepares (2018). The same year, Echikunwoke had a supporting role in the comedy Night School, which grossed over $100 million.[14]

She played the role of Claire in the off-Broadway production of Apologia for the Roundabout Theatre Company.[15] The play ran from October 16, 2018, to December 16, 2018.[15] In 2019, she had a supporting role in Late Night.[8] She was subsequently cast in a main role on Almost Family, a drama series on Fox chronicling three women who find they are siblings after a prominent fertility doctor reveals he has used his own sperm to father over 100 children with his patients.[16] The series was cancelled after one season.[17]