Tika Sumpter

Euphemia LatiQue "Tika" Sumpter is an American actress and producer born in Queens, New York City. She attended Longwood Senior High School in Middle Island, New York, where she was a cheerleader, and later studied communications at Marymount Manhattan College. Prior to pursuing acting, Sumpter worked as a model, appearing in commercials for Hewlett-Packard and Liz Claiborne's Curve fragrances, and worked as a waitress.

Sumpter began her television career in 2004 as a co-host for the reality series Best Friend's Date on The N. In 2005, she joined the cast of the ABC daytime soap opera One Life to Live as Layla Williamson, a role she played regularly until 2010 with additional appearances through early 2011. Her performance earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2008. During this period, she made her film debut in Stomp the Yard: Homecoming (2010), briefly appeared in Salt (2010), and held recurring television roles in Gossip Girl and The Game.

From 2013 to 2021, Sumpter starred as Candace Young in the Oprah Winfrey Network prime-time soap opera The Haves and the Have Nots. Concurrently, she appeared in several major feature films, including Sparkle (2012), A Madea Christmas (2013), Ride Along (2014) and its 2016 sequel, Get On Up (2014), the HBO film Bessie (2015), The Old Man & the Gun (2018), and Nobody's Fool (2018).

In 2016, Sumpter co-produced and starred as a young Michelle Robinson in the biographical romantic drama film Southside with You, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her performance received critical acclaim and earned her nominations for a Gotham Award and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture. That same year, she became an honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

In subsequent years, Sumpter starred in the ABC comedy series Mixed-ish from 2019 to 2021, and produced and starred in the sports drama film The Nomads (2019). She joined the Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise as Maddie Wachowski, appearing in the 2020 original film and its 2022 and 2024 sequels, as well as the spin-off show Knuckles. Sumpter made her directorial debut with the short film Night Off, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. In 2024, she created and produced the children's podcast Adventures of Curiosity Cove through her production company, Fort Sumpter.