Brian Michael Smith
Brian Michael Smith is an American actor known for ground-breaking performances on television and advocacy for trans representation in media. His role as Toine Wilkins, a transgender police officer, in Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar,, launched him into a series of high-profile roles including political strategist Pierce Williams in Showtime’s ' cast.. Smith became the first out Black trans man in a series regular role on Network Television when he was cast as firefighter Paul Strickland in FOX’s '.
Other appearances include NBC's Chicago P.D., HBO's Girls, and Showtime’s thriller Homeland.
Early life
Brian Michael Smith was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was raised by his mother, Ingrid Smith, an event planner and Ford Motor Company employee, with the support of a close-knit family. He and his mother spent his early years living with aunts, cousins and an adopted brother. Although assigned female at birth, he identified as male, and was perceived as male, throughout his childhood. He challenged pressures to conform to his assigned gender role through performance and athletics.While attending Ann Arbor Pioneer High School he played defensive end and fullback on the boys football team during the fall, and set records in shot put and pole vaulting on the girls track & field team in the spring. On September 17, 1999, during a game at Traverse City, Smith became the first assigned female at birth athlete to score a varsity touchdown in the State of Michigan.
Career
Smith studied acting and video production at Kent State University. Upon graduation, he began teaching drama and media literacy to teens until he moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting.He began training under Terry Knickerbocker at the William Esper Studio in 2011. While studying, he earned featured roles on a few TV shows and a Toyota commercial opposite Eli Manning.
He has also explored the stage, performing stand-up, sketch, and improv comedy as a member of numerous troupes including Gotham City Improv, as well as acting in off-Broadway and regional theater in a handful of plays, including Women Are Crazy Because Men Are A**Holes and Mitch Albom's Duck Hunter Shoots Angel.
In 2015, he earned his first speaking credit in Season 4 of HBO's Girls opposite Jemima Kirke and Adam Driver. This followed with similar roles on TV shows including Blue Bloods, Person of Interest, and .
''Queen Sugar''
In 2017, Smith was cast in the role of Officer Antoine "Toine" Wilkins on OWN's series Queen Sugar. Toine is a trans man. Executive-produced by Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey, the Louisiana-set drama focuses on the lives and loves of the estranged Bordelon siblings. The show is based on the novel Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile.The role was one of Smith's first opportunities to play a transgender character and explore his own life experiences in his acting. As he has put it:
Toine and Ralph's relationship is much more reflective of the experiences I've had with long-time friends and I hadn't seen that on screen yet. I was excited at the thought of sharing this with people who may not know that they know trans people in their personal life.
In 2018, Ava Duvernay won a GLAAD Excellence in Media Award for her advocacy for inclusion of LGBT people in front of and behind the camera on her projects, particularly for creating Toine Wilkins and casting a transgender actor for the role.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 2015 | Girls | Cop 1 | |
| 2016 | The Detour | Firefighter | |
| 2016-2018 | Blue Bloods | Officer Buckley, Hoffman's partner | 4 episodes |
| 2017 | Chicago P.D. | Roland Garrett | |
| 2018 | Homeland | EMT Nate | |
| 2017–present | Queen Sugar | Toine Wilkins | Recurring |
| 2019 | ' | Pierce Williams | Recurring |
| 2020 | ' | Paul Strickland | Series regular |
| 2020 | Himself | Documentary film |
Advocacy
Upon graduating from Kent State, Michael returned to Michigan and began teaching and mentoring youth through filmmaking through the Gear Up Program at the University of Michigan.In New York, he continued his media literacy and mentoring programs with Wingspan Arts, Maysles Documentary Center and the Tribeca Film Institute's Tribeca Teaches Program. He discovered the importance of community and visibility while he worked with LGBT youth at the Manhattan LGBT Center
On NBC News, Smith said: "I worked with young people and I just saw how important it was for young LGBT people, no matter where they were in their experience, to see what is down the road for them."
Since Queen Sugar, Michael has used his visibility and platforms to advocate for better trans representation in television and film and to encourage LGBTQ youth to create their own media.
In February 2018, he was a special guest and panelist at the University of Michigan's 4th Annual Trotter House Lecture Series, My Life, My Story! Centering the Lives of Trans Voices event alongside Janet Mock and Amiyah Scott.
During NYC Pride he participated in the GLAAD Game Changers Panel in 2018 with Jamie Clayton and Amiyah Scott to discuss the changing landscape of transgender representation in television.
In August 2018, Smith joined Laverne Cox, Trace Lysette, Jen Richards, Alexandra Billings and Chaz Bono in a Variety magazine's first Transgender in Hollywood Roundtable. The hour-long roundtable was released in conjunction with the August 7 print issue dedicated to trans representation and discrimination within Hollywood. During the discussion, Smith said: "We are artists and we want to create things and we want to have choice and our visibility should not cost us that choice."
In addition to public speaking, he continues to advocate through his art and to support trans narratives in television and film by participating in projects such as Sam Feder's documentary, released on June 19, 2020, by Netflix.
In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named him among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”.