Nelsan Ellis (born November 30, 1977 or 1978) is an award-winning American film and television actor and playwright. He is well known for his role as Lafayette Reynolds in the HBO series True Blood, which he has been playing since 2008.

Ellis was born in Harvey, Illinois, near Chicago. When Ellis and his siblings were younger, their mother, a single parent after her divorce from her children's father, broke down over the death of her brother. Ellis and his siblings became wards of state as a result. They were then raised in Bessemer, Alabama by their grandmother. In Alabama, Ellis attended Jess Lanier High School for a year, then transferred to McAdory High School. He moved back to Illinois at age 15, where he lived with his maternal aunt, and in 1997 he graduated from Thornridge High School in Dolton, Illinois.

He joined the United States Marines at the age of 17, but quit not long afterwards. When Ellis was 21, he was accepted for enrollment at the Juilliard School's Drama Division (Group 33: 2000–2004) where he befriended True Blood-colleague Rutina Wesley (Group 34: 2001–2005). Ellis earned a B.F.A. degree from Juilliard in 2004.

Kevin Michael Alejandro (born April 7, 1976) is an American actor. Alejandro may be best known for his roles as Nate Moretta in the series Southland and as Jesus Velasquez in the series True Blood.

Alejandro, a Mexican American, was born in San Antonio, Texas, and grew up in the small West Texas town of Snyder. He then attended the University of Texas at Austin.

Alejandro was featured on the ABC series Ugly Betty, playing Santos, the father of Justin Suarez and love interest of Hilda. At the time of the season 1 finale episode's filming, he had just become a series regular on the Fox network's newly introduced Drive, since cancelled. He was a featured player in the second season of the Showtime original series Sleeper Cell, playing Benito Velasquez, and also played Dominic Hughes in The Young and the Restless.

He made an appearance, along with fellow Ugly Betty actor Eric Mabius, in the CSI: Miami episode "One of Us", and another as a gay hustler in HBO's Big Love. He also appeared on an episode of Charmed season 7 as Malvock, a cunning demon. He also appeared in the first few episodes of 24's fourth season, as a terrorist henchman, in which he also stars with Tony Plana, fellow Ugly Betty actor. Alejandro was a regular on the now defunct drama Shark as Deputy District Attorney Danny Reyes. Recently he had a small role on The Cleaner, an A&E television series.

Jim Parrack (born February 8, 1981) is an American actor. He has a starring role as Hoyt Fortenberry in HBO series True Blood, and appeared in the film Battle: Los Angeles, which was released March 2011.

Parrack was born on February 8, 1981 and grew up in the town of Allen, Texas. In 2001, Parrack moved to Los Angeles, California where he studied acting at The Stella Adler Academy and then at the Playhouse West.

Parrack and actress Ciera Parrack married on October 19, 2008. Parrack is the president of 120 Productions, Inc.

Bobby Byrd born Robert Howard Byrd (August 15, 1934 – September 12, 2007) was an American funk/soul/R&B/gospel musician, songwriter and record producer. He was born in Toccoa, Georgia, and is a 1998 winner of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's prestigious Pioneer Award,and a 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. He is also noted as the man who founded the famed Rhythm & Blues singing group The Famous Flames, the vocal group with whom James Brown first became famous.

On April 14, 2012, Bobby was inducted posthumously and retroactively with the rest of The Famous Flames into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Bobby Byrd was raised in the relative security of a church-going family in Toccoa, Georgia. His family were respected members of their congregation and active in supporting their community. He was active in his local church's gospel choir, The Zioneers and then made a local name for himself in the Gospel Starlighters. It was a time when church elders disapproved of secular singing, so Byrd and the other members of the Gospel Starlighters would leave the state to perform secular material as The Avons. Byrd provided vocals, piano, and organ, and he led a group including: Sylvester Keels, Fred Pulliam, Doyle Oglesby, Nashpendle "Nash" Knox, and Nafloyd Scott on guitar.

James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of funk music and is a major figure of 20th century popular music and dance.

In a career that spanned decades, Brown profoundly influenced the development of many different musical genres. Brown moved on a continuum of blues and gospel-based forms and styles to a profoundly "Africanized" approach to music making. Brown performed in concerts, first making his rounds across the Chitlin' Circuit, and then across the country and later around the world, along with appearing in shows on television and in movies. Although he contributed much to the music world through his hitmaking, Brown holds the record as the artist who charted the most singles on the Billboard Hot 100 without ever hitting number one on that chart.

For many years, Brown's touring show was one of the most extravagant productions in American popular music. At the time of Brown's death, his band included three guitarists, two bass guitar players, two drummers, three horns and a percussionist. The bands that he maintained during the late 1960s and 1970s were of comparable size, and the bands also included a three-piece amplified string section that played during ballads. Brown employed between 40 and 50 people for the James Brown Revue, and members of the revue traveled with him in a bus to cities and towns all over the country, performing upwards of 330 shows a year with almost all of the shows as one-nighters. In 1986, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 1990 into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.