Daniel Sunjata Condon (born December 30, 1971) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Franco Rivera in the FX television series Rescue Me. Sunjata has received acclaim for his more recent role as Adam Karadec in the ABC television series High Potential.
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Early life and education
Sunjata was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago. He is the adopted son of Bill and Catherine Condon, a police dispatcher and a civil rights worker. His adoptive parents are of Irish and Italian-German descent. He is named in honor of the Mandinka king Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire; the name means "hungry lion." He was told his biological mother was a white teenager who had run away from home and his father was African-American. He graduated from Mount Carmel High School in Chicago, where he played linebacker for two state championship football teams. After attending Florida A&M University, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a Master of Fine Arts from the Graduate Acting Program at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
Career
Sunjata played the role of a sailor on shore leave on the first post-9/11 themed episode of Sex and the City. He portrayed poet Langston Hughes in the film Brother to Brother (2004) and James Holt, a fashion designer, in The Devil Wears Prada (2006).
