Bio
Mekhi Phifer is an American actor best known for his role as Dr Gregory Pratt on the television medical drama ER.
Since his acting debut as a drug dealer in Spike Lee's film Clockers, Phifer has enhanced his industry profile by putting new twists on classic or beloved roles with his performances in O as Othello, the TV movie Carmen: A Hip-Hopera, and as Gale Sayers in the remake of the TV movie Brian's Song.
In his role on ER, Phifer portrays an arrogant intern whose over-confident tendency to do first - and ask permission later - further agitates the already chaotic ER.
Born and raised in New York City, Phifer attended an open casting call there for director Lee's Clockers, as a narcotics dealer embroiled in a murder coverup.
He followed that impact role with another in the comedy spoof feature High School High and continued by co-starring in the fright flick I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze, Jr.
On television, Phifer's credits include the movies The Tuskegee Airmen, Subway Stories and Brian's Song (as former Chicago Bear Sayers).
He received additional notice for his performance opposite singer Beyoncé Knowles on MTV's alternative take on the Carmen legend with the movie Carmen: A Hip-Hopera. Likewise, he earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for another TV movie, A Lesson Before Dying, opposite Don Cheadle.
Among Phifer's other big-screen credits are Soul Food, Hell's Kitchen, NYC, Tears of a Clown, and the thriller An Uninvited Guest, as well as O, in which he starred as an updated Othello (also starring Julia Stiles and Josh Hartnett) who is the captain of a champion high-school basketball team.
He also appeared in The Impostor (with Gary Sinise, Madeline Stowe and Vincent D'Onofrio) and in the movies Paid in Full and 8 Mile.
Phifer also guest-starred in the series Homicide: Life on the Street and New York Undercover. In addition, he appeared in the music video, The Boy Is Mine, by Brandy.
Phifer is also the youngest owner of the Athletes Foot athletic shoe store franchise in California. He is the proprietor of six stores (two of the stores are up and running), and he resides in Los Angeles.