Early life

Born in Eastlands, Nairobi, Kenya, Gathegi grew up in Albany, California. As an undeclared undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he was more interested in playing basketball and was good at it, until he injured his knee; this plunged him into depression, so he took up an acting class as an "easy course". This is how he discovered his love for acting. Afterwards, studied at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 2005. Gathegi's career began in theatre, and his stage credits include Two Trains Running at the Old Globe Theatre, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Cyrano de Bergerac, among others.

Career

Gathegi's first professional role was the Haitian Cabbie in the 2006 film Crank. Though he had originally auditioned for the role of Kaylo, the producers gave the role to Efren Ramirez and instead offered Gathegi an appearance as the Haitian Cabbie. He was dubious at first about performing a Haitian accent, but was coached by a Haitian friend. In 2007, after guest-starring on Lincoln Heights and Veronica Mars, Gathegi went on to star as Bodie in Death Sentence, Darudi in The Fifth Patient and Cheese in Gone Baby Gone. He later had a recurring role as Mormon intern Dr. Jeffrey Cole on the television medical drama House, his character was often mocked for his religious beliefs by Dr. House, who himself is an atheist. He also guest-starred on CSI: Miami, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Life on Mars in 2008 before being cast as Laurent in Twilight. When Gathegi first auditioned for the 2008 film, adapted from the same-titled first book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, he had not heard of the series and was not aware that his character was a vampire. He now has read the whole series and calls himself a hardcore fan. He portrays Eddie Willers in Atlas Shrugged (2011), based on Ayn Rand's novel of the same name.

Filmography

Film roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	Crank	Haitian Cabbie
2007	Gone Baby Gone	Cheese
2007	The Fifth Patient	Darudi
2007	Death Sentence	Bodie
2008	Twilight	Laurent
2009	My Bloody Valentine 3D	Deputy Martin
2009	The Twilight Saga: New Moon	Laurent
2011	X-Men: First Class	Armando Muñoz / Darwin
2011	Atlas Shrugged	Eddie Willers
2011	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part I	Laurent	Flashback only
2014	Shiva and May	Dex
2015	This Isn't Funny	Ryan
2015	Aloha	Lt. Col. Curtis
2015	Criminal Activities	Marques
TBA	Transformation Awaits	Lamay	Pre-production

Television roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2007	House	Dr. Jeffrey Cole	Recurring role, 7 episodes
2007	Lincoln Heights	Boa	3 episodes
2007	Veronica Mars	Zeke Molinda	Episode: "I Know What You'll Do Next Summer"
2008	CSI: Miami	Freddie Mays	Episode: "Tunnel Vision"
2008	Life on Mars	Fletcher Bellow	Episode: "Things to Do in New York When You Think You're Dead"
2008	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Skinny Dude	Episode: "Leave Out All the Rest"
2011	Nikita	Kalume Ungara	Episode: "Girl's Best Friend"
2012	Phineas and Ferb	Iggy/Various characters	2 episodes
2013	The Family Tools	Darren Poynton	Main role, 10 episodes
2013	Beauty & the Beast	Kyle	3 episodes
2013	Red Widow	Leon	3 episodes
2014	Justified	Jean Baptiste	4 episodes
2014	Wild Card	Tres	Unsold television pilot
2015	Proof	Zed	Main role, 10 episodes
2015-present	The Blacklist	Matias Solomon	Recurring role, 13 episodes
2015	Into the Badlands	Jacobee	2 episodes

Awards and nominations

Ovation Awards

• 2011: Nominated for Featured Actor in a Play for the role of Franco Wicks in the Geffen Playhouse production of "Superior Donuts"

[ Source: Wikipedia ]