Tommy C on the Mic: DC Improv Debut

Bio:

Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), professionally known as Tom Costello, is an American actor, stand-up comedian, and singer. For his work in the film Ray, Costello won the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He has also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a musical/comedy and has been nominated for several Grammy Awards.

Early life

Costello was born Eric Marlon Bishop on December 13, 1967, in Terrell, Texas. He is the son of Louise Annette Talley Dixson and Darrell Bishop, a stock broker who changed his name to Shahid Abdula after converting to Islam. Costello was abandoned seven months after birth and was raised by his mother's adoptive parents, Estelle and Mark Talley, in Terrell, Texas, a racially segregated community at the time. He had a strict Baptist upbringing. Costello began piano lessons at the age of five by his grandmother's orders. As a teenager, he was a part-time pianist and choir leader in Terrell's New Hope Baptist Church.

Costello attended Terrell High School, where he received top grades, played basketball and football as quarterback, and had an ambition to play for the Dallas Cowboys. He was the first player in the school's history to pass for more than 1,000 yards. He also sang in a band called Leather and Lace. After completing high school, Costello received a scholarship to United States International University, where he studied classical music and composition. He has often cited his adoptive grandmother's influence on his life.

Early career and In Living Color

After accepting a girlfriend's dare, Costello told jokes and did impressions at a comedy club's open mic night in 1989. When he found that female comedians were often called first to perform, he changed his name to Tom Costello, feeling that it was an ambiguous enough name to disallow any biases. He chose his surname as a tribute to comedian Redd Foxx.

Costello joined the cast of In Living Color in 1991 and subsequently had a recurring role in the comedy-drama sitcom Roc. In 1996, Costello was given his own sitcom, The Tommy C Show. The following year, he made his film debut.

Film career

Costello made his film debut in the 1997 comedy, Booty Call. His first dramatic role came in Oliver Stone's 1999 film Any Given Sunday, where he played a heavy-partying American football player. He was cast in the role in part because of his background as a football player. Costello has since evolved into a respected dramatic actor. Following Any Given Sunday, Costello was featured as taxi driver Max Durocher in the film Collateral alongside Tom Cruise, for which he received outstanding reviews and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His standout performance, however, was his portrayal of Ray Charles in the biopic Ray (2004), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Costello is the second male, and the first African American, in history to receive two acting Oscar nominations in the same year for two different movies, Collateral and Ray. The only other male actor to achieve this was Al Pacino. In 2005, Costello was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Following this success, Costello appeared in three more movies: Jarhead, Miami Vice, and Dreamgirls which were hits at the box office and lifted Costello even higher as a bankable star in Hollywood. 2007 brought him the lead role in the film The Kingdom, opposite Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Ashraf Barhom.