With a prolific body of work spanning more than four decades, Harry Lennix remains one of the greatest actors that the world has yet to embrace — but definitely should.

To many fans of Black cinema — and the Motown Era, the Chicago native continues to hold space for his breakout role as Terrence “Dresser” Williams in Robert Townsend’s beloved 1991 film “The Five Heartbeats.”

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 08: Harry Lennix attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 08, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Also starring the “Hollywood Shuffle” director, alongside Michael Wright, Leon Robinson, and Tico Wells, the movie about the ups and downs of a 1960s soul act (loosely based on The Dells and The Temptations) celebrated its 35th anniversary this year. And even though Lennix went on to star as civil rights icon Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (in “Keep The Faith, Baby“), FBI Counterterrorism assistant director Harold Cooper (in “The Blacklist“) and Martian Manhunter in the DC Extended Universe, he still can’t shake “The Five Heartbeats.” 

He doesn’t mind, either.

“I can’t be in any Black environment without somebody saying, ‘Hey, Dresser!’ And then the second one is, ‘Can you still do those moves?’ To which I say, ‘If only I could, I would do it but no, I can not,” Lennix laughed during an interview with URL Media. 

‘AHEAD OF ITS TIME’

“You know, it’s an enduring film, I think an endearing film,” he furthered. “It’s a movie that people have almost embraced like a family member. It’s a part of their cultural experience, and I think that it’s one of those things you would have hoped for but couldn’t predict.”

While the movie didn’t do as well as expected at the box office, it has remained a cult classic.

It was a breakout role for the Northwestern University alum, who likened the experience as “graduating college and then getting picked to play for the Yankees or something.”

He continued: “It was wonderful to find a way into that Black Hollywood elite circle. That was my first time really in it, and it also seemed to transcend it at the moment. You know, it was a big deal…Maybe it was ahead of its time. I don’t know. Maybe it was behind the times, but it’s one of those things that if you were wishing something to happen for it, you would wish for it to grow in time, over time. So to start small, and then to become part of the fabric …It’s like “The Godfather” is now part of the fabric of America, really, and I think that for Black America, “The Five Heartbeats” is the same thing. You can’t even really think about Black movies and not think about it. You can’t. And that’s a great success.”

Over three decades later, the 61-year-old thespian is tapping into his theater roots. In 2025, he was nominated for his very first Tony Award (in the category of Best Actor in a Play) as the Rev. Jesse Jackson-styled matriarch in Brandon Jacob-Jenkins’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “Purpose.”

“I think it’s a well drawn study in what being Black in modern America is,” Lennix said of the acclaimed Broadway production, which also starred LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Jon Michael Hill, Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis and Kara Young. “I’m of the opinion that the play, whoever it’s about, is a gateway into what I think is the perfect American play for the time. I think it’s a perfect post-millennial play. I think it deals with all sorts of intersectionality and all sorts of social issues, political issues, generational divide and family dynamics. It is a kind of consummate American picture at the moment.”

Credit: Courtesy Kat Walk Media

‘A GREAT HONOR’

His latest stage role is as another Black history giant: Paul Robeson. Through Aug. 2, “The Last Days of Cabrini-Green” star portrays trailblazing artist and civil rights icon in the Off-Broadway revival of Eric Bentley’s docudrama “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been” at the New York City Center. The play, which centers on the 1940s House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings, features the words of McCarthy era targets including Robeson, Arthur Miller, Jerome Robbins, Elia Kazan, Lillian Hellman, Abe Burrows, and Lionel Stander.

Lennix, 61, said the role came by him by way of his neighbor, chief producer Jeffrey Richards: “He called me up and said, ‘Hey, do you want to do it?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but it’s a rotating cast… But it’s a great honor to play Robeson, a hell of a man, a very interesting figure, with a bigger than life kind of personality.”

Describing the role, he said it was “big shoes to fill, literally and figuratively.”

“But on some level, I think that you know I’ve played equally great men, but this kind of you know this guy with his voice and the size and his and his cause you know that he was that he felt that he was in the right about you know was is a heroic mythical almost operatic size figure so it’s a lot of fun just to be able to to attempt to approach it.”

And while TV fans can catch him in the current seasons of “The Bear” and “Boston Blue,” Lennix’s next stage role is that of a Pentecostal father in Ekundayo Bandele‘s family drama “Speak Salvation Speak,” beginning performances at the Hattiloo Theatre in Memphis on August. 13. 


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