By NAN ET Editor
News Americas, LOS ANGELES, CA, Tues. Oct. 20, 2015: There is no denying that Caribbean roots actors on U.S. television are too few and far between – especially in top role. But a hot new NBC show now has one heating up the screen.
She is ‘Blindspot’s’ Marianne Ragipcean Jean-Baptiste, who plays Bethany Mayfair, assistant director of the FBI, in the new NBC drama that airs Mondays at 10/9 CT.
The show is built around a woman – Jane Doe – who was found naked in a bag in Times Square and whose body covered from head to toe with tattoos that are supposedly clues to major crimes that have not yet happened. Now she is working with the FBI to figure out her identity and the meaning of the markings.
“I’m constantly blown away by how they’re deciphered and what and who it is that has created that puzzle in the first place. It’s very, very exciting for us, watching how it all unfolds. The cast is going oh my God,” says Jean-Baptiste of the show.
The Academy Award-nominated Jean-Baptiste was born in Camberwell, United Kingdom and grew up in Peckham with an Antiguan mother, who worked in an old people’s home, and St. Lucian father who was a foreman for an events company.
Jean-Baptiste gained international success from the Mike Leigh-directed social drama Secrets & Lies (1996), receiving both Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nominations for her performance, becoming the first black British actress to be nominated for an Academy Award, and the second black Briton to nominated, succeeding Jaye Davidson.
She is coming off the American television series ‘Without a Trace,’ where she played Vivian Johnson and honed her American accent. For seven years she co-starred on the show for which she and her cast were nominated for a SAG Award, and was nominated for a NAACP Award for three years in a row.
Her other television credits include “Harry’s Law,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “Private Practice” and as Sharon Bishop QC in the ITV crime series “Broadchurch.”
She has also appeared in “Robocop,” opposite Joel Kinnaman and Samuel L. Jackson; “The Moment,” opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh; “Violet & Daisy,” opposite James Gandolfini and Saoirse Ronan; Fernando Meirelles’ “360,” opposite Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins and Rachel Weisz; “Spy Games,” opposite Robert Redford; and “Won’t Back Down,” opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis.
But Jean-Baptiste is not just an actor but an artist. She is a writer and composer, who wrote the score for Mike Leigh’s “Career Girls” and has written and performed with British jazz musicians, including Jason Rebello, for whom she wrote and recorded four tracks on his album “Keeping Time.”
She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and spent most of her 20s in the theatre. Her theater credits include “Hang,” “The Way of the World,” “Measure for Measure,” “The Winter’s Tale” and “The Merchant of Venice,” opposite Al Pacino.
She is married to British ballet dancer Evan Williams; they have two daughters.
