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Anthony Sherwood

Anthony Sherwood’s career moves easily between performance and storytelling, with music, theatre, television and filmmaking all feeding into the same body of work. A Black Nova Scotian born in Halifax’s Africville neighbourhood in 1949, Sherwood grew up in Montreal’s Little Burgundy, a community with a strong Black Canadian tradition. Music ran through his family, and he spent eight years as an R&B singer before turning his attention to acting. Sherwood began on the Montreal stage in 1975, appearing in musicals including Ain’t Misbehavin’, Cabaret and The Music Man. That foundation in live performance carried into Canadian and American film and television. He joined the fourth and final season of Airwolf as Jason Locke, then found one of his defining television roles as Dillon Beck on CBC’s Street Legal. He played Beck from 1989 to 1994, earning a 1992 Gemini Award nomination for supporting performance. His screen work has ranged across drama, science fiction and thrillers, with feature appearances in Terror Train, Physical Evidence, Guilty as Sin, Honey and Race, alongside guest roles in series such as Due South, Being Erica, Lost Girl and The Listener. He has also continued returning to the stage, playing Marty in Dreamgirls at Ontario’s Grand Theatre in 2009 and taking the title role in Othello for Ale House Theatre in 2015. Sherwood’s work behind the camera gives his career another dimension. He formed Anthony Sherwood Productions in 1991, focusing on social justice and African-Canadian history and culture. He wrote, produced and directed Honour Before Glory, which received a 2002 Gemini Award, and created Music – A Family Tradition, a Gemini-winning documentary that was also nominated for an International Emmy Award. Other documentaries addressed landmines, HIV/AIDS, Black faith communities and gang violence. Whether acting, directing or documenting overlooked histories, Sherwood has built a career around performance with a clear sense of purpose.