Karimah Westbrook

Born in 1978, Karimah Westbrook was raised in Chicago. Although she performed in plays as a young girl, only after graduating from a disciplined military high school did she decide that she wanted to pursue acting. That pursuit brought her to the Academy of Dramatic Arts West, in Pasadena, where she learned to hone her talent. Although Westbrook's first official on screen credit was a guest role on the hospital drama "City of Angels" (CBS, 2000), her first acting opportunity came when she crashed an audition for "Save the Last Dance" (2001) and landed a supporting role in the film starring Julia Stiles and Kerry Washington. What followed was 15 years of consistent work supporting roles on series like "Without a Trace" (CBS, 2002-09) and "Mad Men" (AMC, 2007-2015), as well as films such as "Rum Diary" (2011) starring Johnny Depp, and "Suburbicon" (2017) starring Matt Damon and directed by George Clooney. In 2018, Westbrook landed her first series regular role, when it was announced that she would play the mother of the lead character in the show "All American" (The CW, 2018-) which follows the story of a high school football player from South Central Los Angeles, who is recruited to play at Beverly Hills High School.