Billy Porter

Voices Honoree 

Billy Porter is an award-winning actor, singer, director, producer, composer, and playwright. He won an Emmy Award for Lead Actor for his appearance in FX’s Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated drama Pose and earned three Emmy nominations total for his role in the series. A Hollywood Walk of Fame inductee, Porter has numerous theatre credits, including the role of ‘Lola’ in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, which he originated in 2013 and for which he won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards, as well as the Grammy for best musical-theatre album. He won his second Tony Award in 2022 for “Best Musical” as a producer on A Strange Loop. Currently, he is performing in an off-Broadway musical, Jelly’s Last Jam as ‘Chimney Man,’ a musical portrait of legendary jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton. Recently, he starred in the film Our Son alongside Luke Evans, the Paramount comedy 80 For Brady alongside Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin and Sally Field, and Prime Video’s Cinderella re-make.

His feature directorial debut Anything’s Possible, a coming-of age film written by Ximena García Lecuona, was released in July 2022 on Prime Video. In 2023, he directed an episode of Fox’s anthology series Accused. Upcoming, he will co-write and star in a James Baldwin biopic. Porter released his first literary project, Unprotected, in October 2021, which was published by Abrams Press. As a recording artist, Porter most recently released his album Black Mona Lisa, under his record deal with Island Records (UK) and Republic Records (US).